Ireland under the Tudors Part 36

[390] Browne and Bale were friars; yet Protestants will not blame them for entering the holy estate of matrimony, any vows to the contrary notwithstanding. To modern England a married clergy seems quite natural, but the scandal was great during the transition period, and Queen Elizabeth felt the awkwardness herself. The following statement of Harpsfield may be true or false, but it shows what could be said by a contemporary. It should be remembered that Harpsfield was Archdeacon of Canterbury. 'Against these kind of marriages, and maintenance of the same, King Henry, in his latter days, made very sharp laws, whereupon many so married put over their women to their servants and other friends, who kept them at bed and board as their own wives. And after the death of King Henry they received them again (as love money) with usury; that is, the children in the mean season begotten by the said friends, whom they took, called and brought up as their own, as it was well known, as well in other as in Browne, Archbishop of Dublin. It would now pity a man at the heart to hear of the naughty and dissolute life of these yoked priests,' &c.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REIGN OF MARY.

[Sidenote: The succession to the crown.]

Lawyers and casuists might dispute about the succession. Logically, Mary and Elizabeth could not both be legitimate; but the people of England swept these cobwebs away. Catherine had for twenty-two years borne the t.i.tle of Queen, and in that great place she was not known to have done anything worthy of blame, but much deserving the highest praise. And then there was the will of Henry VIII. Its execution had perhaps been informal, but the people cared nothing for that; it was his will, and he had been authorised by Parliament to make it. The sick-room fancies of a boy of sixteen were not to be allowed to alter such a settlement.

[Sidenote: Mary proclaimed.]

The struggle for the crown was short, and was little felt at the distance at which Ireland then was, though the Dudley party took care that Queen Jane's accession should be officially known there. On the thirteenth day after her brother's death Mary was proclaimed by the Council in London, on the fourteenth the baffled Northumberland renewed the proclamation at Cambridge, on the fifteenth the grand conspirator himself was arrested.

On the very day of the Cambridge proclamation the Privy Council wrote to Aylmer, the acting Lord Justice cancelling the former communication, and directing that Mary should be proclaimed 'Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and on earth supreme head of the churches of England and Ireland.'[391]

[Sidenote: St. Leger is Deputy, 1553.]

Besides twelve Privy Councillors, six individuals connected with Ireland, who happened to be in England, signed these letters--Cusack, the Chancellor; Lord Gormanston; Staples, Bishop of Meath; Thomas Luttrell, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; James Bathe, Chief Baron; and the veteran John Alen. The object probably was to show the men in Dublin that this time at least there was no mistake as to which Queen they were to obey. Cusack, Aylmer, Luttrell, and Bathe were confirmed in their offices with increased emoluments, and no immediate change was made in the general management of Irish affairs. Some disturbances amongst the O'Connors were easily put down, and the citizens of Dublin repulsed a raid of the O'Neills near Dundalk. In the meantime Northumberland had expiated his crimes on the scaffold. Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstall, and others had been restored, and Cranmer, Latimer, and Hooper imprisoned; and there was time to think of the affairs of Ireland. In October, soon after the coronation, St. Leger was appointed Lord Deputy in fulfilment of the late King's intention. He landed at Dalkey on November 11, and on the 19th took the oath and received the sword in Christ Church.

[Sidenote: His instructions.]

St. Leger's instructions show the policy which Mary had adopted. As regards temporal affairs it did not greatly differ from that of her father. The Scots in Ulster were not to be molested unless they gave fresh trouble. The army was to be reduced to 500 regular soldiers, of which not more than ten per cent. were to be Irishmen. Extraordinary garrisons were to be discharged at the next general pay day, and if possible induced to go back to England without raising riots. The Lord Deputy might employ kerne and gallowgla.s.ses where necessary, and the usual private bands were to be continued; but coyne and livery were to be eschewed as much as possible. St. Leger found it impossible to carry out the reduction of the army lower than 1,100 men, besides kerne. The question as to the desirability of a Presidency for Munster was to be carefully considered in all its bearings. Leix and Offaly being in great measure waste, the Lord Deputy was to grant lands in fee simple at a small quit-rent either to Englishmen or Irishmen, binding them to erect and maintain farm buildings, and to till a certain portion of land. By this means it was hoped that these unfortunate districts would soon be made like the English Pale. Leases for twenty-one years were to be given to Crown tenants generally, including holders of monastic lands. Goodacre had just died, so that there was no difficulty about Armagh, to which, as well as to the Primacy of all Ireland, Dowdall was immediately restored, with the additional grant of the priory of Ards rent free for life. The Ma.s.s and the rest of the old religion was to be restored as nearly as possible.[392]

[Sidenote: Mary maintains the rights of the Crown.]

But Mary, though zealous for orthodoxy, had no intention of yielding the rights of the Crown to the Pope, and this was no doubt well understood.

One of St. Leger's earliest duties was to go to Drogheda and place the government of Eastern Ulster in the hands of Eugene Magennis, who specially covenanted not to admit any provisor from Rome. An Irish-born priest named Connor MacCarthy asked Mary for a letter of licence to go to Rome, there to obtain certain benefices from the Pope, fearing lest some should be in the Queen's gift, 'and also considering the statute of Premunire.' Nor was the fear an idle one, for when Tyrone afterwards obtained a Papal bull for the appointment of his chaplain to the restored priory of Down, the Queen sharply reminded him that she intended to maintain the prerogative in that behalf which she had received from her progenitors. MacCarthy was not the only Irish ecclesiastic of the reign who thought it necessary to pet.i.tion for relief from the consequences of the dreaded statute.[393]

[Sidenote: Catholicism restored. Bale refuses to give way.]

[Sidenote: Bale's religious dramas.]

In some places the old religion was restored without waiting for any formal order. As soon as Edward's death was known Justice Howth and Lord Mountgarret, the Earl of Ormonde's uncle, went to Kilkenny and desired to have the sacrament celebrated in honour of St. Anne. The priest said the Bishop had forbidden celebrations on week days; 'as indeed I had,' says Bale, 'for the abominable idolatry that I had seen therein.' The learned judge, who seems to have had no commission, then discharged the clergy from obedience to their Bishop, and commanded them to proceed in the old way. On August 20 Mary was proclaimed at Kilkenny with much solemnity.

Bale strongly objected to wear cope or mitre, or to have the crozier borne before him; not from any opposition to the Queen's t.i.tle, but from dislike to vain ceremonies. Taking a New Testament in his hand, he went to the market-cross followed by a great crowd, to whom he preached from the 13th chapter of Romans, on the reverence due to magistrates. But the clergy of the cathedral, who had no sympathy with the Bishop's doctrines, provided two disguised priests to carry mitre and crozier before him against his will. The people were amused, instructed, or scandalised, as the case might be, by the representation of a tragedy concerning G.o.d's promises in the old law, and by a comedy of St. John the Baptist. The baptism and temptation of Christ were brought upon the stage, and the young men of the town acted both at the morning and evening performance.

Both dramas were written by Bale himself, and in a literary point of view they are far from contemptible. They mark the transition between the mystery plays of the middle ages and the compositions of Shakespeare's immediate precursors. Personified abstractions as well as historical characters appear on the stage; nor did Bale shrink from a representation which seems impossible to us, for he boldly introduces the first person in the Trinity under the name of Pater Caelestis. Justification by faith is the great doctrine inculcated, and where the author speaks in person he loses no opportunity of attacking the Church of Rome. In an epilogue he exhorts the people to

'Hear neither Francis, Benedict, nor Bruno, Albert nor Dominic, for they new rules invent, Believe neither Pope nor Priest of his consent, Follow Christ's gospel,' &c.

In another play on the instructive story of King John, 'Ynglond vidua'

says:--

'Such lubbers as hath disguised heads in their hoods, Which in idleness do live by other men's goods, Monks, chanons, and nones.'

In his other works Bale throughout shows the same spirit. Thus he calls that very questionable hero, Sir John Oldcastle, 'a blessed martyr not canonised by the Pope, but in the precious blood of his Lord Jesus Christ.' St. Paul is the great object of Bale's admiration, and he seems to have thought that he was like him. The points of resemblance are similar to those which Captain Fluelen discovered between himself and Alexander the Great. Thus, Paul was tossed up and down between Candia and Melita, Bale between Milford and Waterford. There was a river in Monmouth and a river in Macedon, and there were salmon in both.[394]

[Sidenote: Opposition to Bale in his diocese.]

Sir Richard Howth, Treasurer of St. Canice's, and his friend Sir James Joys, were among Bale's most energetic opponents. To annoy him they suggested solemn exequies and prayers for the soul of Edward VI. The Bishop argued that it would be better to wait for orders from Dublin. The ceremony had already once been postponed to see the devil dance at Thomastown--a Sunday amus.e.m.e.nt which the mob perhaps preferred to the Bishop's plays. Bale found another enemy in one whom he calls Bishop of Galway, and who was probably John Moore, Bishop of Enaghdune, the ancient diocese in which Galway stands. This Moore was commissioned, along with other prelates not acknowledged in the Roman succession, to consecrate Patrick Walsh Bishop of Waterford. He was no credit to the Reformation, for Bale represents him as spending his nights in drinking and his days in confirming children at twopence a head. A gallowgla.s.s brought a dog in a sheet with twopence hanging round his neck to be confirmed with his neighbours' children; in this, says Bale, 'noting this beastly Bishop more fit to confirm dogs than Christian men's children.' The soldier may have regarded him as a schismatic, but it is not easy to understand how such a man can have attained episcopal orders.[395]

[Sidenote: He is forced to fly.]

Ten days after the proclamation of Mary there was a general revolt against Bale, incited by Howth, whose position in legal circles gave him ample means of knowing how the wind blew at Court, but who was rather horrified at the length to which the clergy and their adherents went. In Bale's absence they rang the bells of St. Canice's and of all the other churches, flinging their caps to the battlements of the cathedral with shouts of laughter, but doing no actual violence. A little later the mob was not so good-humoured. The Fitzpatrick and Butler kerne, and especially the 'furious family of Mountgarret,' annoyed Bale in many ways. Barnaby Bolger, an enterprising tradesmen who had formerly aroused great indignation by forestalling Kilkenny market, and whose young daughter was married to 'Grace Graceless,' an adherent of the Fitzpatricks, headed a tumultuous attack on the Bishop's house outside the town. He and his friend Mr. Cooper, the parson of Callan, were robbed of all their horses, and thus deprived of the means of escape. Five of Bale's servants, one of them a girl of sixteen, were caught haymaking, and all murdered. He managed to close the portcullis and defend himself until rescued by Robert Shee, the sovereign of Kilkenny, 'a man sober, wise, and G.o.dly, which is a rare thing in this land.' Shee, who could command the services of 100 horse and 300 foot, sent Bale by night to Dublin, and no doubt he thought of St. Paul's journey under somewhat similar circ.u.mstances. But there was no safety in the Irish capital, and the Bishop escaped by sea in a sailor's dress. He was captured at St.

Ives and brought before the justices, but was released when nothing was found to connect him with Wyatt's or any other plot. He was again captured by pirates and had to pay a ransom, but ultimately succeeded in reaching Holland. For five years he lived at Basel, where he continued to write with an acrimony which had not been lessened by his recent troubles. When Elizabeth became Queen, Bale made no attempt to regain his bishopric. At sixty-three he was disinclined to face the Kilkenny people again, or perhaps he had learned that he was unfit to govern men. He became a prebendary of Canterbury, and devoted his remaining years to literature. His hurried flight from Ireland had forced him to leave books and ma.n.u.scripts behind, and the Queen ordered them to be sent over to him. 'He had,' she said, 'been studious in the search of the history and antiquities of this our realm,' and might probably do something for their ill.u.s.tration. Whether Bale ever got back his library or not, he was certainly not silenced for want of materials; for the extent and variety of his learning were considered most remarkable.[396]

[Sidenote: Wyatt's rebellion. Croft, Cheeke, and Carew, 1554.]

The abortive insurrection of Wyatt had the usual effect of setting Mary more firmly on the throne, and at the same time of exasperating her against some whom she might have been willing to spare. Sir James Croft, the late Lord Deputy, was arrested before he had time to raise his tenants in Herefords.h.i.+re: he was convicted, but afterwards pardoned. Sir Peter Carew, who afterwards played an important part in Irish affairs, was also accused of complicity, and thought it prudent to go abroad, where his companion was no less a personage than Sir John Cheeke.

Venturing to Brussels, where Paget was amba.s.sador, they were led to suppose that there was no danger, but that crafty diplomatist had them kidnapped near Antwerp, and carried to England in a fis.h.i.+ng boat. Their captors were the Flemish and Spanish officials; and Philip, while expressing becoming indignation at the breach of hospitality, took care not to hear of it until the prisoners were safe beyond seas. The pa.s.sage can hardly have been pleasant, for they were blindfolded and chained, one at each end of the boat. Poor Sir John Cheeke, who afterwards showed his unfitness for the crown of martyrdom, and who perhaps saw a vision of the stake, did not conceal his misery. 'Although very well learned, but not acquainted with the cross of troubles, he was still in great despair, great anguish, and heaviness, and would not be comforted, so great was his sorrow; but Sir Peter Carew, whose heart could not be broken nor mind overthrown with any adversities, and yielding to no such matter, comforted the other, and encouraged him to be of a good stomach, persuading him (as though he had been a divine) to patience and good contentation.' The man of action, as is not seldom the case, showed that he had more philosophy than the philosopher. Sir Peter, whose guilt, if he was guilty, was much less clear than that of Croft, was pardoned by the Queen, and afterwards served her well at St. Quentin. Sir John Cheeke lived to undergo a worse humiliation than that of Cranmer, to be made an instrument in the persecution of those with whom he secretly agreed, to suffer in the few months which his pusillanimity had gained him a thousand martyrdoms of grief and shame, and then to die heart-broken and dishonoured. Sir Nicholas Arnold, afterwards employed by Elizabeth in Ireland, was another of the conspirators. Lady Jane, the innocent victim of so many intrigues, laid her beautiful neck upon the block, and fivescore Kentishmen suffered death for their zeal to the Reformation or their hatred of Spanish influence. Gerald of Kildare and the young Earl of Ormonde both served with distinction against Wyatt, and the orthodox Queen rewarded both with goodly grants of abbey lands. Ormonde had been captain of one of the bands of Whitecoats sent by the city into Kent, where many of his men deserted to the insurgents.[397]

[Sidenote: The primacy is restored to Dowdall.]

The insurrection being at an end, the Queen lost no time in forcing Browne to surrender his patent of precedence, and restoring Dowdall to the primacy, and a commission was issued to him and to Drs. Walsh and Leverous for re-establis.h.i.+ng the old religion, and punis.h.i.+ng those who had violated the law of clerical celibacy. Browne, who had a wife, was accordingly deprived, and, pending the appointment of a successor, the temporalities of his see handed over to Lockwood, the pliant Dean of Christ Church. Staples of Meath, who was likewise married, and was besides personally obnoxious to Dowdall, was also deprived in favour of one of the Commissioners who sentenced him, the learned William Walsh, formerly a Cistercian monk of Bective Abbey. Curiously enough, Walsh, who was appointed by Pole in virtue of his legatine authority, did not receive a Papal provision till 1564, some time after Elizabeth had expelled him from his see. The same treatment for the same offence was inflicted on Lancaster, Bishop of Kildare, who was succeeded by Leverous, already Bishop of Leighlin by Papal provision. A fourth married bishop was Travers of Leighlin, who was succeeded by Thomas O'Fihel or Field, an Augustinian friar. A fifth, Casey of Limerick, had to make way for his aged predecessor Quin. On Bale, who had left the field clear, no legal sentence of deprivation was pa.s.sed; but his successor, John Thonory, was already appointed. Thonory has an evil name for having corruptly wasted the property of his see, and is said to have died of grief at the loss of some of his ill-gotten gains. Of the deprived prelates, Lancaster lived to be Archbishop of Armagh, and Casey, who survived two successors, and saw another expelled, regained his see in 1571. Browne, Travers, and Lancaster are supposed to have died before the accession of Elizabeth, and Staples soon after it.[398]

[Sidenote: Kildare returns to Ireland, 1554.]

This year was memorable for the return of Gerald of Kildare, whose t.i.tles and estates were restored to him. The attainder, however, was not renewed till 1569. Old Brian O'Connor was released from the Tower, and allowed to revisit Offaly, an indulgence which he owed to the exertions of his daughter Margaret, who was Kildare's aunt, and who relied upon the number of her connections at Court, as well as her own knowledge of the English language. Barnaby Fitzpatrick, Lord of Upper Ossory, King Edward's bosom friend, returned about the same time, and so did a far more important personage, the young Earl of Ormonde. 'There was great rejoicing,' say the 'Four Masters,' 'throughout the greater part of Leath-Mhogha 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 come to Ireland.'

[Sidenote: Constant war among the Irish.]

While the obedient s.h.i.+res were busy with the restoration of the ancient religion, the native Irish made war among themselves, with but little interference from the Government. Donough O'Brien, the second Earl of Th.o.m.ond, and a firm friend of the Crown, was killed in April 1553 by his brother Donnell, leaving the earldom to Connor, his eldest son, by Lady Helen Butler, who survived him. Donnell, however, a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of O'Brien, and the clansmen were divided between the representatives of the old and new order. Donnell pet.i.tioned that, having been nominated according to the ancient custom, he might be acknowledged as chief. St.

Leger was unable to grant this, but offered to write to the Queen in his favour. In the meantime other controversies were submitted to the arbitration of O'Carroll, O'Mulrian, and MacBrien Arra, on the part of Donnell; and of the barons of Mountgarret, Cahir, and Dunboyne, all Butlers, on the part of the Earl. The umpires in case of disagreement were the Lord Deputy, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Desmond. It is very hard to make out the exact sequence of events, but either just before or just after this negotiation, Donnell attacked one of his nephew's castles, and was driven off by the arrival of the Earl of Ormonde. He then turned his attention to the plunder of Clanricarde. The Baron of Delvin continued to ravage MacCoghlan's country, and one of the Nugents, who was foster-brother of Kildare, being killed, the newly restored Earl, who lost no time in showing that he meant to keep up the family traditions, exacted 340 cows as an _eric_. The O'Carrolls in the south, the MacSweenys in the north, killed each other in the old fas.h.i.+on.

Shane O'Neill persuaded the Earl of Kildare and the Baron of Delvin to take his part in a quarrel with one sept of his name, and old Tyrone was defeated by another sept, supported by the MacDonnells, who were also intriguing with Calvagh O'Donnell.[399]

[Sidenote: The Pope and the 'Rex Hiberniae,' 1555.]

We have seen that the Queen had no intention of yielding any part of the dignity which had belonged to her predecessors. Notwithstanding the Papal pretension to suzerainty, she had as a matter of course a.s.sumed the royal t.i.tle created by her father in Ireland. The Holy See found it necessary to respect accomplished facts, and had not Julius III.

abandoned all claims to the monastic lands, Pole would never have been allowed into England. Paul IV.'s pretensions were boundless, but he could not afford to quarrel about a mere trifle both with England and Spain. He considered it a great glory for his pontificate that its opening should be signalised by the arrival of an English amba.s.sador. Whether he wished it or not, Philip and Mary were, and would remain, King and Queen of Ireland. He therefore ignored all that Henry had done, and, as if of his own mere notion, erected Ireland into a kingdom. The world might perhaps suppose that Mary took it from his hand, and not in right of blood. 'The Popes,' says the sarcastic Venetian, 'have often given that which they could not take from the possessors, and, to avoid contentions, some have received their own goods as gifts, and some have dissembled the knowledge of the gift, or of the pretence of the giver.' But in Ireland, where distance cast a halo of enchantment over Papal politics, and where Franciscans and Jesuits swayed the popular mind, the bull which announced the gracious gift was taken by many for what it pretended to be, and not for what it really was.[400]

[Sidenote: The Queen maintains her prerogative.]

Mary gave evidence of her desire to restore the splendour of religion by re-establis.h.i.+ng St. Patrick's as a cathedral. Leverous was the first Dean of the new foundation, and was allowed to hold the preferment along with the see of Kildare. The man selected to undo Browne's work was Hugh Curwin, Dean of Hereford, a native of Westmoreland, and one of the Queen's chaplains. He had become known as a preacher in favour of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, in opposition to the Franciscan Peto. The deanery of Hereford had been his reward. Peto, on the other hand, had become the Queen's confessor, and was the chosen instrument of Paul IV., when that Pope in a fit of anger appointed a legate to supersede Pole.

Mary so valued the royal authority that she resented the irregular honour intended for her confessor, though he had been the champion of her own legitimacy, stopped the red hat at the gates of Calais, and never allowed Peto any benefit from the Pope's irritability. On the whole, Anne's advocate fared better than Catherine's. Curwin, whose first article of belief enjoined submission to princ.i.p.alities and powers, no doubt knew how to turn the Queen's love of power, as he had done her father's, to his own advantage. He was treated with exceptional favour, and gained practical control of the temporalities even before his consecration, which was performed in London by Bonner, Thirlby, and Griffin.

Immediately afterwards he received the Great Seal of Ireland. Curwin had the pall from Rome, and in the Papal record of his appointment Philip and Mary are said to have supplicated for it, Browne being ignored, and Curwin made successor to Alen. But the King and Queen only acknowledged that Curwin was preferred on their recommendation, and he had to renounce on oath all things prejudicial to the Crown, whether contained in the Papal bull or not. Curwin held a provincial synod soon after his arrival in Ireland, at which the princ.i.p.al business was the restoration of the ancient rites.[401]

[Sidenote: No progress made in Ulster. St. Leger has no money, 1555.]

Ulster was in a state of more than usual confusion. Ma.n.u.s O'Donnell, who had been constantly at war with his father, was opposed by his son Calvagh, who had the help of the Scots. They addressed him as ill.u.s.trious lord, and he went over to Scotland to claim the proffered aid. Returning with a large force, and with a piece of ordnance which the annalists inexplicably call a crooked gun, he entered Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, took his father prisoner, and battered Greencastle and another fortress on Lough Foyle.

Calvagh thenceforth a.s.sumed practical control of his clan. The Scots slew Hugh MacNeill Oge, and St. Leger divided his territory between Phelim O'Neill and the sons of Phelim Bacagh. The hardy interlopers had even designs on Carrickfergus, which St. Leger says were frustrated 'by the help of G.o.d and Mr. Parker;' but in a campaign of six weeks the Lord Deputy could gain no real advantage. As in the case of most Irish governors, his detractors, among whom Sir William Fitzwilliam was conspicuous, were busy at Court. They accused him, among other things, of falsifying estimates in favour of Andrew Wyse, the late Vice-Treasurer, whose accounts had been found unsatisfactory. 'I am now in case,' he said, 'as the poet's fame. I have meat to the surlip and drink to the netherlip, and can reach neither of them.' His position made it impossible for him to economise, and no money came to pay his hungry retinue. A friendly chronicler has remarked that St. Leger, like all other Irish governors, was hated chiefly for his good deeds; like a good apple tree, which, the more fruit it bears, the more stones are thrown at it.[402]

[Sidenote: Lord Fitzwalter (Suss.e.x) Lord Deputy, 1556.]

The Lord Deputy's entreaties for release were heard at last, and the government was conferred on Sir Thomas Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, afterwards created Earl of Suss.e.x, who, but for his Irish service, would bear one of the fairest characters in our history. Mary rejoiced that the true Catholic faith had by G.o.d's great goodness and special grace been recovered in England and Ireland, and she directed her representative 'to set forth the honour and dignity of the Pope's Holiness and See Apostolic of Rome, and from time to time to be ready with our aid and secular force, at the request of all spiritual ministers and ordinaries there, to punish and repress all heretics and Lollards and their d.a.m.nable sects, opinions, and errors.' Cardinal Pole, she added, was about to send over a legatine commission to visit the Irish Church, and official a.s.sistance was to be given 'in all and everything belonging to the function and office legatine, for the advancement of G.o.d's glory and the honour of the See Apostolic.' The new governor was reminded that he lay under an obligation to execute justice, and was exhorted at much greater length to exert himself for the improvement of the revenue. A Parliament was to be held, chiefly as a means of restoring religion according to the Queen's ideas, of settling her marriage and succession, and of voting a subsidy.

Sir Henry Sidney, who now makes his first appearance in Irish history, accompanied the Lord Deputy as Vice-Treasurer. He brought with him a sum of 25,000_l._[403]

[Sidenote: A warlike mayor of Dublin.]