Part 36 (1/2)
[399] _Truly_.--State Papers, vol. iii. p. 108.
[400] _Use_.--28th Henry VIII. cap. xvi. In s.h.i.+rley's _Original Letters_, p. 31, we find the following order from the Lord Protector, Somerset, to the Dean of St. Patrick's: ”Being advertised that one thousand ounces of plate of crosses and such like things remaineth in the hands of you, we require you to deliver the same to be employed to his Majesty's use,” &c. He adds that the Dean is to receive ”20 in ready money” for the safe keeping of the same.
[401] _Order_.--The original letter may be seen in s.h.i.+rley, pp. 41, 42.
CHAPTER XXV.
Creation of the Earls of Th.o.m.ond and Clanrickarde--How the King procured Money--Prayers in English--Opposition of Dr. Dowdall--Accession of Queen Mary--Joy of the Irish--The Catholic Service restored Publicly--Accession of Queen Elizabeth--Shane O'Neill obtains his Dominions--Parliament a.s.sembled--Unfair Dealing--Martyrs in the Reign of Elizabeth--The Protestant Archbishop advises Persecution--Cruelties enacted by English Officers--Shane O'Neill--The Deputy tries to get him Poisoned or a.s.sa.s.sinated, with the Queen's Concurrence--His Visit to England--He refuses to Dress in the English Fas.h.i.+on.
[A.D. 1540-1567.]
Every official was now required to take the oath of supremacy, and the consequences of refusal were too well known to be estimated lightly. It has been a.s.serted by several historians, that no Irish clergyman suffered death during this reign; but this statement is quite incorrect.
A careful examination of the State Papers and of the private records of the religious orders, prove the contrary. In the spring of the year 1540, Lord Leonard Grey was recalled, and Sir William Brereton was appointed Chief Justice. Grey was soon after committed to the Tower, on a charge of high treason, and was executed in the following year. The usual feuds between the Irish chieftains and the settlers were continued during this period, as well as the usual feuds between the chiefs of each party. Sir Anthony St. Leger, who was appointed Deputy at the close of the year 1540, tried to reconcile the Ormondes and the Desmonds, and describes the latter as ”undoubtedly a very wise and discreet gentleman”--a character which must be taken with some qualifications.
On the 1st of July, 1543, Murrough O'Brien was created Earl of Th.o.m.ond and Baron of Inchiquin; and De Burgo, known by the soubriquet of Ulich-na-gceann (”of the heads”), from the number of persons whom he decapitated in his wars, was created Earl of Clanrickarde and Baron of Dunkellin. These t.i.tles were conferred by the King, with great pomp, at Greenwich; but the Irish chieftains paid for the honour, if honour it could be called where honour was forfeited, by acknowledging the royal supremacy.
The Four Masters record the following events under the year 1545:--A dispute between the Earl of Ormonde and the Lord Justice. Both repaired to the King of England to decide the quarrel, and both swore that only one of them should return to Ireland. ”And so it fell out; for the Earl died in England, and the Lord Justice returned to Ireland.” Sir Richard c.o.x a.s.serts that the Earl and thirty-five of his servants were poisoned, at a feast at Ely House, Holborn, and that he and sixteen of them died; but he does not mention any cause for this tragedy. It was probably accidental, as the Earl was a favourer of the reformed religion, and not likely to meet with treachery in England. The Irish annalists do not even allude to the catastrophe; the Four Masters merely observe, that ”he would have been lamented, were it not that he had greatly injured the Church by advice of the heretics.”[402]
Great dearth prevailed this year, so that sixpence of the old money was given for a cake of bread in Connaught, or six white pence in Meath.
In 1546 they mention a rising of the Geraldines, ”which did indescribable damages;” and two invasions of the Lord Justice in Offaly, who plundered and spoiled, burning churches and monasteries, crops and corn. They also mention the introduction of a new copper coin into Ireland, which the men of Ireland were obliged to use as silver.
The immense sums which Henry had acc.u.mulated by the plunder of religious houses, appear to have melted away, like snow-wreaths suns.h.i.+ne, long before the conclusion of his reign. His French and Scotch wars undoubtedly exhausted large supplies; his mistresses made large demands for their pleasures and their needy friends; yet there should have been enough, and to spare, for all these claims. When the monasteries were destroyed, the English clergy trembled for their own existence. The King could easily have dispensed with their services, and deprived them of their revenues. They were quite aware of their precarious tenure of office, and willingly agreed, in 1543, to give Henry ten per cent, on their incomes for three years, after the deduction of the tenths already vested in the crown. Their incomes were thus ascertained, and a loan was demanded, which, when granted, was made a gift by the ever-servile Parliament.
In 1545 a benevolence was demanded, though benevolences had been declared illegal by Act of Parliament. This method of raising money had been attempted at an early period of his reign; but the proposal met with such spirited opposition from the people, that even royalty was compelled to yield. A few years later, when the fatal result of opposition to the monarch's will and pleasure had become apparent, he had only to ask and obtain. Yet neither percentage, nor tenths, nor sacrilegious spoils, sufficed to meet his expenses; and, as a last expedient, the coin was debased, and irreparable injury inflicted on the country.
On the 28th of January, 1547, Edward VI. was crowned King of England.
The Council of Regency appointed by Henry was set aside, and Seymour, Duke of Somerset, appointed himself Protector. St. Leger was continued in the office of Lord Deputy in Ireland; but Sir Edward Bellingham was sent over as Captain-General, with a considerable force, to quell the ever-recurring disturbances. His energetic character bore down all opposition, as much by the sheer strength of a strong will as by force of arms. In 1549 the Earl of Desmond refused to attend a Council in Dublin, on the plea that he wished to keep Christmas in his own castle.
Bellingham, who had now replaced St. Leger as Lord Deputy, set out at once, with a small party of horse, for the residence of the refractory n.o.ble, seized him as he sat by his own fireside, and carried him off in triumph to Dublin.
In 1548 O'Connor and O'More were expelled from Offaly and Leix, and their territory usurped by an Englishman, named Francis Bryan. Cahir Roe O'Connor, one of the sept, was executed in Dublin, and a number of the tribe were sent to a.s.sist in the Scotch wars. The political cabals in England consequent on the youth of the King, who nominally governed the country, occasioned frequent changes in the Irish administration.
In 1551 the Lord Deputy Crofts succeeded Sir Thomas Cusack, and led an army into Ulster against the Scotch settlers, who had long been regarded with a jealous eye by the English Government; but he was defeated both at this time and on a subsequent occasion. No Parliament was convened during this short reign, and the affairs of the country were administered by the Privy Council. Dr. Browne and Dr. Staples were leading members. The Chancellor, Read, and the Treasurer, Brabazon, were both English. The Irish members were Aylmer, Luttrell, Bath, Howth, and Cusack, who had all recently conformed, at least exteriorly, to the new religion.
The most important native chieftain of the age was Shane O'Neill. His father, Con, surnamed Baccagh (”the lame”), had procured the t.i.tle of Baron of Dungannon, and the entail of the earldom of Tyrone, from Henry VII., for his illegitimate son, Ferdoragh. He now wished to alter this arrangement; but the ungrateful youth made such charges against the old man, that he was seized and imprisoned by the Deputy. After his death Shane contended bravely for his rights. The French appear to have made some attempt about this period to obtain allies in Ireland, but the peace which ensued between that country and England soon terminated such intrigues.
All efforts to establish the new religion during this reign was equally unsuccessful. On Easter Sunday, A.D. 1551, the liturgy was read for the first time in the English tongue, in Christ Church Cathedral. As a reward for his energy in introducing the reform in general, and the liturgy in particular, Edward VI. annexed the primacy of all Ireland to the see of Dublin by Act of Parliament. There was one insuperable obstacle, however, in the way of using the English tongue, which was simply that the people did not understand it. Even the descendants of the Anglo-Norman were more familiar with the Celtic dialect, and some attempt was made at this time to procure a Latin translation of the Protestant communion service.[403]
Dr. Dowdall had been appointed, in 1543, to the primatial see of Armagh, by Henry VIII., who naturally hoped he would prove a ready instrument in his service; but, to the surprise of the court, he put himself at the head of the orthodox party, and was one of the most faithful opposers of the introduction of the Protestant form of prayer. In 1552 he was obliged to seek refuge on the Continent. On the death of Dr. Wauchop, pet.i.tions were sent to Rome, requesting his appointment to the see of Armagh. He was proposed in Consistory on the 1st of March, 1553.
Mary succeeded to the crown in 1553. A Protestant writer explains the difference between the religious persecutions of her reign, and those which occurred during the reign of Henry VIII., with admirable discrimination and impartiality: ”The religious persecutions which prevailed in this reign, proceeded altogether from a different cause from that which stands as an everlasting blot on the memory of Henry VIII. In Henry's instance, people were tortured and murdered in the name of religion, but the real cause was their opposition to the will of an arbitrary tyrant; whereas those who suffered under Mary, were martyred because the Queen conscientiously believed in those principles to which she clung with such pertinacity.”[404] One of the princ.i.p.al of these victims was Archbishop Cranmer, who had already caused several persons to suffer in the flames for differing from his opinions, and thus almost merited his fate. It is a curious fact that several Protestants came to Ireland during this reign, and settled in Dublin; they were subsequently the founders of respectable mercantile families.
Although the English people had adopted the reformed religion nationally, there were still a few persons whom neither favour nor indifference could induce to renounce the ancient faith; and this brief respite from persecution tended to confirm and strengthen those who wavered. In Ireland, always Catholic, the joy was unbounded. Archbishop Dowdall immediately prepared to hold a provincial synod at Drogheda, where enactments were made for depriving the conforming prelates and priests. Happily their number was so few that there was but little difficulty in making the necessary arrangements. The only prelates that were removed were Browne, of Dublin; Staples, of Meath; Lancaster, of Kildare; and Travers, of Leighlin. Goodacre died a few months after his intrusion into the see of Armagh; Bale, of Ossory, fled beyond the seas; Casey, of Limerick, followed his example. All were English except the latter, and all, except Staples, were professing Protestants at the time of their appointment to their respective sees. Bale, who owed the Kilkenny people a grudge, for the indignant and rather warm reception with which they treated him on his intrusion into the see, gives a graphic account of the joy with which the news of Edward's death was received. The people ”flung up their caps to the battlements of the great temple;” set the bells ringing; brought out incense and holy water, and formed once more a Catholic procession, chanting the _Sancta Maria, ora pro n.o.bis_, as of old. In fact, ”on the accession of Mary to the throne, so little had been done in the interest of the Reformation, that there was little or nothing to undo. She issued a licence for the celebration of Ma.s.s in Ireland, where no other service was or had been celebrated worth mentioning, and where no other supreme head had been ever in earnest acknowledged but the Pope.”[405]
But the Irish obtained no temporal advantages during this reign--an ill.u.s.tration of the truth of what I have before remarked, that the nation has suffered almost as much from political as from religious causes. The work of extermination still went on. The boundaries of the Pale were increased thereby. Leix was designated the Queen's county, and the fort of Campa obtained the name of Maryborough, in compliment to the Queen. Offaly was named the King's county, and the fortress of Daingean, Philipstown, in compliment to her Spanish consort.
In the year 1553 Gerald and Edward, the sons of the late Earl of Kildare, returned from exile, and were restored to the family honours and possessions. The Four Masters say that ”there was great rejoicing because of their arrival, for it was thought that not one of the descendants of the Earls of Kildare or of the O'Connors Faly would ever again come to Ireland.” They also mention that Margaret, a daughter of O'Connor Faly, went to England, ”relying on the number of her friends and relatives there, and her knowledge of the English language, to request Queen Mary to restore her father to her.” Her pet.i.tion was granted, but he was soon after seized again by the English officials, and cast into prison.
Shane O'Neill made an unsuccessful attempt to recover his paternal dominions, in 1557. The following year his father died in captivity,[406] Dublin, and he procured the murder of Ferdoragh, so that he was able to obtain his wishes without opposition. Elizabeth had now ascended the English throne (A.D. 1558), and, as usual, those in power, who wished to retain office, made their religion suit the views of the new ruler. The Earl of Suss.e.x still continued Viceroy, and merely reversed his previous acts. Sir Henry Sidney also made his worldly interests and his religious views coincide. A Parliament was held in Dublin, in 1560, on the 12th of January. It was composed of seventy-six members, the representatives of ten counties, the remainder being citizens and burgesses of those towns in which the royal authority was predominant. ”It is little wonder,” observes Leland, ”that, in despite of clamour and opposition, in a session of a few weeks, the whole ecclesiastical system of Queen Mary was entirely reversed.” Every subject connected with this a.s.sembly and its enactments, demands the most careful consideration, as it has been a.s.serted by some writers--who, however, have failed to give the proofs of their a.s.sertion--that the Irish Church and nation conformed at this time to the Protestant religion. This certainly was not the opinion of the Government officials, who were appointed by royal authority to enforce the Act, and who would have been only too happy could they have reported success to their mistress.
A recent writer, whose love of justice has led him to take a position in regard to Irish ecclesiastical history which has evoked unpleasant remarks from those who are less honest, writes thus: ”There was not even the show of free action in the ordering of that Parliament, nor the least pretence that liberty of choice was to be given to it. The instructions given to Suss.e.x, on the 10th of May 1559, for making Ireland Protestant by Act of Parliament, were peremptory, and left no room for the least deliberation. Suss.e.x had also other instructions (says c.o.x) to him and the Council, to set up the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d as it is in England, and make such statutes next Parliament as were lately made in England, _mutatis mutandis_. [Hist. Angl. Part I. p.313.] It is plain that her Majesty's command is not sufficient warrant for a national change of faith, and that a convocation of bishops only is not the proper or legal representative a.s.sembly of the Church. It is also plain that the acts of an unwilling Parliament, and that Parliament one which does not deserve the name of a Parliament, cannot be justly considered as the acts of either the Irish Church or the Irish people.”[407]