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

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 - Ware’s Antiquities, by Harris, chap. xxxvii., sec. 3. Lord L. Grey to Cromwell, Jan. 19, 1538.]

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 - The King to Browne in S.P., vol. ii. p. 174; Browne’s answer, Sept. 27, 1537; Staples to St. Leger, June 17, 1538; Ware’s Life and Death of Browne.]

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 - Ware’s Bishops; Staples to St. Leger, June 17, 1538; Devices by Travers for the Reformation in 1542, S.P., vol. iii., No. 382. The King’s rebuke was in 1537, see S.P., vol. ii. p. 174, note.]

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 - Lord Protector and Privy Council to Lord Deputy St. Leger and Council, March 25, 1547; the King to the same, April 7; King Edward VI. to the Earl of Desmond, Oct. 6. In a letter dated Lambeth, July 6, to her ‘assured loving friend Mr. Cecil, Master of Requests,’ Lady Ormonde begs that Abbeyleix may not be granted to Barnaby Fitzpatrick to her son’s detriment, and she refers to Cecil’s ‘former friendship.’ Here we see the beginning of a most important connection.]

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 - Four Masters, 1546, 1547.]

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 - Introduction to Carew, vol. ii. p. lxxxv.; Archbishop Butler to the Lord Protector, Feb. 25, 1548; Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 154.]

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 - Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 66. For Butler and Powell, see three letters calendared under April and May 1548, Nos. 16, 17, and 19.]

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 - Privy Council to Lord Deputy and Council, Nov. 2, 1547; John Brereton to Bellingham, May 1548 (No. 20), and July (Nos. 44 and 45); Cosby to Bellingham, July (Nos. 48 and 50). Bellingham dated a letter from Athy, Aug. 19, 1548. The eighteen beds are mentioned by John Plunket and Thomas Alen in a letter to him of the 18th.]

Lord Dunboyne

Other loyal and half loyal partisans were less energetic than Cosby. Lord Dunboyne complained that his manor of Fishmoyne in Tipperary had been plundered by the O’Carrolls and O’Meaghers, and this because he had discharged his men by the Lord Deputy’s orders. Bellingham retorted that his lordship lied in his throat; for he had bidden him to entertain true men instead of rebels, and to discharge no one unless it could be done safely. He had particularly cautioned him against ‘rashly discharging such as have been malefactors as your gallowglasses were, and naturally as their captains were.’[328 - Lord Dunboyne to Bellingham, June 21, 1548, and the answer (No. 25).]

Pirates

While the frontiers of the Pale were harassed by robbers, the loyal ports of the south were in constant dread of pirates. A rover named Eagle blockaded Kinsale, which was half depopulated by an epidemic, and another, named Colley, established himself in a castle belonging to Barry Oge, whose aunt he married, so that the poor town was quite shut up. Cork, the citizens told Bellingham, was so well defended by marshes and waters, ‘besides walls and towers which we do build daily, that we do not fear all the Irishmen in Ireland and English rebels also, if there be any such, until such time as your wisdom would repair hither for our refuge.’ John Tomson, a noted rover, visited both Cork and Waterford. According to the authorities of the latter city he had ‘one saker of 16-foot long, having four chambers, so that we do not see how he may be apprehended.’ In an affray between the citizens and an armed French vessel Tomson took part with the foreigner, and the pursuit of them cost Waterford 1,000l. This formidable water-thief was taken by O’Sullivan Bere, who made him pay a large ransom. Afterwards Bellingham rather oddly allowed the Cork men to trade with Tomson, because it seemed possible that he had received pardon, and because the goods then on board did not appear to be stolen. Wine, figs, and sugar were, however, the wares offered by Tomson and his ally Stephenson, and it is most likely that they had been stolen at sea from the Portuguese. Tomson used the occasion to refit and to repair his weapons, and the Waterford men called upon the Mayor of Cork to apprehend the pirates; but that prudent official refused to do so without special orders from Bellingham. Pirates were unpleasant people to deal with. A gang confined at Waterford broke their gyves, nearly murdered a fellow-prisoner, and with many ‘cracks’ and menaces threatened to burn the gaol.[329 - Sovereign and Council of Kinsale to Bellingham, July 15, 1548; Mayor, &c., of Cork to same, July 24, Aug. 27, Dec. 29, and the answer, Jan. 10, 1549; Mayor, &c., of Waterford to Bellingham, Sept. 5, 1548.]

Their daring outrages

A pirate named Smith sailed into Youghal, but seems to have taken nothing but loose rigging and spars. He had long infested these waters, seemingly with no more than six men, armed with guns and bows. The Youghal fishermen took heart, and by a combined attack succeeded in capturing Smith. Other pirates named Cole, Butside, and Strangwych are mentioned as active about this time. They were all English, but the trade was by no means confined to any one nation; for Sir Philip Hoby, the English ambassador at the imperial court, was instructed to apply for help to suppress a squadron of twenty sail, manned by lawless desperadoes of all countries, who infested the Irish coast, and robbed the Emperor’s subjects. Logan, a Scotch professor of the art, and a survivor from Lennox’s expedition, haunted the coast about Howth, and took several vessels. Power and Gough, who robbed a Portuguese ship in Waterford harbour, and ruined the foreign trade of that port, were probably of Irish birth. Desmond, on whom the honorary office of Lord Treasurer, held by the late Earl of Ormonde, had already been conferred, received a commission from Lord Admiral Seymour to exercise his jurisdiction along the coast from Dungarvan to Galway. The men of the latter town said they could defend themselves against all Irishmen coming by land, but that they had not a single piece of artillery to resist attacks from the sea. They professed unswerving loyalty, as did their neighbours of Limerick, and Bellingham thanked the latter for their efforts to keep the Burkes quiet, ‘in whom,’ he said, ‘the obstinacy is found to break this order, you the King’s our own most dear sovereign lord’s and master’s subjects, the mayor, brethren, and council of Limerick shall proceed to the first and lawful redress and punishment thereof.’[330 - Mayor, &c., of Youghal to Bellingham, July 8, 1548; Deputy Mayor and Council of Galway to same, Aug. 13; Bellingham to Limerick, Aug. (No. 63); John Goldsmith to Bellingham, Aug. 22; Kyng to Wyse, Sept. 5. Sir Philip Hoby’s letter is calendared among the foreign S.P., April 17, 1549.]

Bellingham’s campaign in Leix, 1548

Before Bellingham came to Ireland a hosting into Leix had been proclaimed, and he carried it out promptly. The men of Drogheda were required to furnish a strong contingent, having ‘caused to be mustered all such as are meet for the war without partiality.’ They had also to furnish carts, of which it seems the town could only boast three, and there were complaints of the stringency of Bellingham’s requisitions; but he said he would rather they were unfurnished than he. The Drogheda men did very good service, and the carts, which were duly paid for, were employed to carry pioneers’ tools. The soldiers were thus enabled without excessive fatigue to cut passes through woods, and make causeways over bogs. After a thirty days’ campaign in Leix, Bellingham resolved that a town should be built in Leix, and in the meantime was erected Fort Governor or Protector, in the place where Maryborough now stands. The citizens of Dublin were required to assist in making it practicable for soldiers to act upon the border of Kildare; but they made excuses, saying that men could not carry arms and tools as well. Bellingham sarcastically refuted their argument, ‘in which your experience bitterly condemneth my ignorance.’ Let them send carts as the Drogheda men had done, and then one man could do the work of two.[331 - Bellingham to Alen, July 1548 (No. 39); Mayor, &c., of Drogheda to Alen, Aug. 8; Bellingham to Privy Council, Aug. (No. 84), and to the Mayor of Dublin (No. 67). For the fort, which became Maryborough, see the notes to O’Donovan’s Four Masters under 1548 and 1553.]

Bellingham routs the O’Connors

In August 1548 Cahir O’Connor, who still kept some force about him, invaded Kildare. Nicholas Bagenal, Marshal of the army, fell in with the marauders, and rescued the cattle taken, though his men were in the proportion of one to sixteen. Cahir retreated with his troop, and with a multitude of camp followers and ‘slaves,’ who carried their food to what was considered an unassailable position. Bellingham was not far off, and he ordered Saintloo to attack them wherever he could find them. Accompanied by Travers, Brereton, and Cosby, Saintloo tracked them to a spot surrounded by a bog. The soldiers struggled manfully through the moss until they reached hard ground, and a great butchery followed. The oldest man in Ireland had, as Bellingham supposed, never seen so many wood-kerne slain in one day. Such was the slaughter, says this precursor of Cromwell, that none escaped but by mistake, or hiding them in ambush, ‘such was the great goodness of God to deliver them into our hands.’ The Old Testament in English was beginning to make its mark upon language and upon habits of thought.[332 - Bellingham to the Privy Council, Aug. 1548 (No. 84).]

Disturbances in Munster. Foreign rumours

Munster was much disturbed. Edmund Tyrry, the King’s bailiff at Cork, had a dispute with some of the Barries about land. The Earl of Desmond was appealed to, and he took Tyrry to Lord Barrymore, desiring the latter to do him justice. Barrymore took the bailiff with him to his court-baron, or ‘parliament,’ and the case was partly heard and adjourned to a future day. On his return journey towards Cork, Tyrry was waylaid and murdered. Bellingham demanded justice, and Lord Barrymore, after some months’ delay, gave up the murderers, who were doubtless duly executed. But the Barry country continued to be the scene of frequent outrages. Lord Barrymore went out one day in the early winter to drive the cattle of some wild Irishmen, and met with certain other wild Irish who were going to spoil his tenants. A fight followed, and the Barries ‘killed incontinently little lack of fourscore of them,’ wherewith, said the Corporation of Cork, ‘we be glad, and so is the Earl of Desmond.’ But Bellingham was not satisfied with Desmond’s conduct, nor easy about the future. James Delahide, always the herald of a storm, was in Ireland, and probably with the Earl. Gerald of Kildare might appear again; and there were rumours that the French meditated a descent and the establishment of a fortified port at Skerries to command the passage to Scotland. These fears were not realised; but there were frequent communications between Desmond and the O’Briens, and Bellingham took steps to have everything reported to him. This vigilance perhaps prevented the Munster chiefs from moving.[333 - Bellingham to the Mayor of Cork, Aug. 1548 (No. 80); Mayor, &c., of Cork to Bellingham, Nov. 18; Alen to Somerset, Nov. 21; Bellingham to Arthur, Dec. (No. 145).]

Anarchy in Connaught. Garrison at Athlone

The death of the newly-created Earl of Clanricarde revived the normal anarchy of Connaught. Ulick Burke was acknowledged as captain by the Government and by some of the inhabitants during the minority of the Earl’s son Richard. But another Richard, the heir’s illegitimate brother, gave so much trouble that Sir Dermot O’Shaughnessy, and other well-disposed chiefs, demanded that the young Earl should be settled in possession, and that Commissioners should be sent to Galway for the purpose. The false Richard was, however, allowed to rule his own immediate district, but not without strong hints from Bellingham that what the King gave the King could take away. Burke was reminded that he had apprehended no notable malefactor, and that the Lord Deputy would quarrel with no honest Irishman for his sake. Bellingham had neither time nor force to give to the West, and the towns of Limerick and Galway had very indifferent success in their efforts to keep the peace. But the chief governor’s reputation for justice was not without effect even in Connaught. ‘Your lordship’s famous proceedings,’ wrote the Archbishop of Tuam, ‘being divolgated throughout all Ireland, to the great fear of misdoers and malefactors all through the country hereabouts now needing reformation, more than heretofore, all for lack of justice among them to be observed.’ Bellingham established a garrison at Athlone, which overawed the O’Kellys and O’Melaghlins; but little progress was made beyond the Shannon. Robert Dillon, the lawyer, was the Lord Deputy’s civil substitute, but the sword was necessarily in the Baron of Delvin’s hands, who did all he could to prevent Dillon from sending messengers to Dublin. The central districts of Ireland between the Pale and the great river were at this time the theatre of constant war, and in this an English, or Anglo-Norman, adventurer figures conspicuously.[334 - Archbishop Bodkin to Bellingham, July 25, 1548; Bellingham to Richard Burke, Aug. (No. 83), and to the Mayor of Limerick, Sept. 18; Ulick Burke to Bellingham, Sept. 22.]

Edmond Fay

Edmond Fay, who seems to have had property at Cadamstown, in the King’s County, and to have claimed more than the natives were willing to allow him, was called into Westmeath by O’Melaghlin to aid him against his enemies. The confederates gained some successes, and occupied, among other places, the historic castle of Kincora. ‘Edmond,’ say the ‘Four Masters,’ ‘then continued to conquer Delvin in the King’s name in opposition to O’Melaghlin; and thus had O’Melaghlin brought a rod into the country to strike himself, for Edmond a Faii expelled and banished himself and all his tribe out of Delvin, just as the young swarm expels the old.’ Fay, who was to some extent supported by the Government, and who had soldiers with him, drove the MacCoghlans across the Shannon, and made himself master of most of the country between Athlone and Slievebloom. Not satisfied with this he proposed to attack the O’Carrolls, who joined the MacCoghlans, and expelled him from his recent conquests. Fay called on the Government for help, and the whole county, on both sides of the Brosna, was burned and plundered by the troops, to whom no resistance was attempted. The Irish demolished Banagher and other castles to prevent their being occupied, and this became a general practice in like cases. Cadamstown was afterwards taken by the O’Carrolls, and Fay returned to his original obscurity. He seems to have had the keep of Thady Roe, or the Red Captain, a noted leader of mercenaries, who held possession of Nenagh. The O’Carrolls burned the monastery and town, but the castle defied their power.[335 - Four Masters, 1548 and 1549.]

The Pale is freed from rebels

Towards the close of 1548 Alen was able to report that there were only about a dozen rebels on the borders of the Pale. O’Connor had surrendered at discretion, and his life was spared in the hope of inducing O’More to follow his example. Alen advised that they should be removed from Ireland, and that work should be found for them at Calais or Boulogne. ‘There are in all,’ he told Paget, ‘not twelve persons wherewith your honour to make a maundie, for when Christ ministered at His last supper there were twelve, of whom one was a traitor, and of these ye may have twelve together at one table.’[336 - Alen to Paget, Nov. 21, 1548.]

The coinage. A mint

The Plantagenet kings had made no difference in the coinage of England and Ireland; but in 1460 – when Richard, Duke of York, was Lord Lieutenant – the Parliament of Drogheda, with the express intention of loosening the tie between the two islands, declared that coins intrinsically worth threepence should be struck in Ireland and pass for fourpence. There was afterwards a further degradation, and the money struck by Henry VIII. consisted at last of one-half, or even two-thirds, alloy. ‘New coins were introduced into Ireland,’ say the ‘Four Masters,’ with pardonable exaggeration, ‘that is, copper, and the men of Ireland were obliged to use it as silver.’ Dishonesty had its proverbial reward, for trade was thrown into confusion and general discontent engendered. The Corporation of Galway more than once besought Bellingham to force the new money on the captain of Clanricarde and Donnell O’Flaherty. The Corporation of Kinsale made the same request as to the Courcies, Barries, and MacCarthies. This was, of course, beyond Bellingham’s power, and the Protector went on coining regardless of Irish complaints. Thomas Agard was Treasurer of the Dublin Mint, and exercised his office independently of the Lord Deputy. He was originally in Cromwell’s service, and his position not unnaturally brought him into collision with Lord Leonard Grey, who accused him of making mischief. Agard, however, said that Grey, ‘which is my heavy lord,’ oppressed him out of spite, because he opposed the Geraldine faction, and prevented him from setting up broad looms and dye-works in Dublin. With the politic St. Leger he got on better, but Bellingham, whose temper was quite as despotic as Grey’s, was much disgusted at the independence of the Mint. Agard leaned to the Puritan side, and praised Bellingham’s godly proceedings. God is with you, he wrote to him, and with all good Christians who love God and their King, with much more of the same sort. But the Lord Deputy was not conciliated, and accused Agard of cooking his accounts, and of embezzling 2,000l. He was not superseded, and was entrusted with the congenial task of melting down chalices and crosses, and of turning them into bad money. The home authorities chose to make Agard independent in his office; but the stronger nature triumphed, and the King’s auditor reported that the Treasurer of the Mint dared not for his life speak of his business to any but the Lord Deputy. The debased currency caused much speculation of an undesirable kind. Thus, Francis Digby, who had a licence to export Irish wool, found it pay much better to buy up plate with the current coin and sell it in England for sterling money. Others took the cue, and it became necessary to issue a proclamation. It was, of course, no more possible to prevent the exportation of silver than to change the ebb and flow of the tides.[337 - Harris’s Ware, pp. 211-217; S.P., vol. iii. p. 534; Four Masters, 1546; Mayor, &c., of Galway to Bellingham, July 27 and Aug. 13, 1548; Sovereign and Council of Kinsale to same, July 16; Agard to same, Sept. 23; Richard Brasier to same, Oct. 8; Memoranda by Bellingham, Nov. 14; Bellingham to Warwick, November (No. 132, i.); Privy Council to Bellingham, Jan. 6, 1549.]

Bellingham’s haughty bearing

His rash letters to Somerset,

In November Bellingham paid a short visit to Dublin, where he found Lady Ormonde with her new husband, Sir Francis Bryan, who had a commission as Lord Marshal of Ireland. Bryan, ‘the man of youthful conditions,’ as Roger Ascham called him, was particularly recommended by the Privy Council to Alen, who could not understand what Henry VIII. had seen in him worthy of great promotion. Bellingham hated him from the first, and Alen thought he would have the same feeling to any one who had married Lady Ormonde. We have no means of knowing whether he was in love with her, or whether he hated her, or whether he merely disliked the alliance as likely to clip his own wings. His idea of the rights and dignity of his position was high and even excessive, and was asserted with a fine disregard of prudence. To Somerset he complained that his credit was bad, and that he was despised in Ireland because he was thought to have no power to reward those who had done good service. He begged that they might be ‘fed with some thereof, which no doubt it is great need of, for the wisest sort have ever found that good service in Ireland has been less considered of any place.’

to Warwick, and to Seymour

In writing to Warwick his words were still stronger, and he complained bitterly at the slight put on him in the matter of the mint. ‘I am,’ he said, ‘at your honourable lordship’s commandment; but in respect I am the King’s Deputy, your good lordship may determine surely that I will have none exempt from my authority in Ireland’s ground, but sore against my will.’ He had not spent the King’s treasure in gambling or riotous living, nor in buying land for himself. The King’s responsible servants in Ireland were neglected, and credit given to backstairs’ suitors ‘coming in by the windows,’ which did more harm than all the rebels and Irishry in the realm. Some of Warwick’s letters had hurt him, whereas the true policy would be to let men ‘know that I am the King’s Deputy, so that they shall think when they have my favours things go well with them, and the contrary when they have them not.’ These letters, and another to Seymour, gave great, and not unnatural offence, so that Bellingham was fain to beg the admiral’s pardon and intercession with Warwick. Some measure of the serpent’s wisdom is necessary to those who fill great offices.[338 - Bellingham to Somerset, Nov. 22, 1548, which encloses a copy of the letter to Warwick; to Issam, Dec. (No. 163).]

Bellingham and the Irish

If Bellingham could thus treat the most powerful men in England, he was not likely to mince matters with those whom he could touch. ‘Bring yourself,’ said the Lord Deputy to O’Molloy, who had wrongfully detained the property of a kinswoman, ‘out of the slander of the people by making prompt restitution, or have your contempt punished as to your deserts shall appertain.’ To the Earl of Thomond, who had promised to bring in Calough O’Carroll but had not done so, he wrote a noble letter, but a very imprudent one, considering the character and position of the chief whom he addressed. Calough O’Carroll, he said, had brought his troubles on himself by allowing his men to plunder, and by refusing to give them up; he should be well plagued for it according to promise, until he and his brother found means to come and seek their own pardon. The O’Carrolls submitted and were pardoned.[339 - Bellingham to O’Molloy, Nov. 24, 1548; to O’Carroll (No. 138); to Thomond (No. 137).]

Bellingham and his Council

Bellingham was above all things a soldier, and he treated his Council, consisting for the most part of lawyers, in a very high-handed manner. His old friend Alen remonstrated, and there is no reason to doubt him here, though he had a way of quarrelling with successive Deputies. Alen admitted that Bellingham was quite free from pecuniary self-seeking, but thought he had more than his share of the other sin which beset chief governors, ambition namely, and the longing to rule alone. He had said that it would be a good deed to hang the whole Council, and he kept the members waiting for hours among the servants in the ante-room. Alen he accused personally of feigning sickness when bent on mischief. Others he threatened to commit if they offended him, reminding them that he could make or mar their fortunes. When angry he frequently sent men to a prison without any warrant of law; ‘and I myself,’ said the Chancellor, ‘except I walk warily, look for none other but some time with the King’s seal with me to take up my lodging in the castle of Dublin.’ The Council had become a lifeless, spiritless corpse, for Bellingham could hear no advice without threats and taunts. It is not surprising that Privy Councillors feared to speak frankly, and forced themselves to wait until this tyranny should be overpast.[340 - Alen to Paget, April 1549 (No. 32).]

Bellingham seizes Desmond

To a Lord Deputy so jealous for the dignity of his office nothing could be more distasteful than the power of the House of Ormonde, which was now wielded by the Countess and her husband. The Sheriff of Kildare gave a most galling proof of this power by begging that his communications with Bellingham might be kept secret for fear of Lady Ormonde’s displeasure. She claimed the right to keep gallowglasses in Kilkenny, and the Lord Deputy infinitely disliked this practice, which had prevailed for centuries. He wished to keep the young Earl in England, lest by living at home he should imbibe exaggerated notions of his own importance. ‘His learning and manners,’ he said, ‘would be nothing amended, and the King’s authority thereby be nought the more obeyed.’ By remaining in England till he was of discreet years, he might learn willingly to abandon his ‘usurped insufferable rule, which I trust he will do yet in time to come.’ Any assumption of independence on the part of a subject irritated Bellingham excessively; and when Desmond, whose manners he stigmatised as detestable, neglected his summons, he set out quietly from Leighlin with a small party of horse, rode rapidly into Munster, surprised Desmond sitting by the fire in one of his castles, and carried him off to Dublin. He set himself to instruct the rude noble in civilisation and in the nature of the royal authority, sometimes, if we may believe the chronicler, ‘making him kneel upon his knees an hour together before he knew his duty.’ This discipline, accompanied doubtless with kind treatment in other ways, seems to have answered so well, that, according to the same authority, Desmond ‘thought himself most happy that ever he was acquainted with the said Deputy, and did for ever after so much honour him, as that continually all his life at every dinner and supper he would pray for the good Sir Edward Bellingham; and at all callings he was so obedient and dutiful, as none more in that land.’[341 - Bellingham to John Issam, Nov. 1548 (No. 140). Hooker’s Chronicle in Holinshed. The capture of Desmond was about Christmas 1548.]

Ireland quiet. Garrison at Leighlin Bridge

At the beginning of the year 1549 the Privy Council thanked Bellingham for having brought Ireland to a good state. They charged him to aid Tyrone against the Scots, and to be on his guard against French enterprises undertaken under colour of trading. The forts erected where Maryborough and Philipstown now are kept Leix and Offaly quiet. Breweries were at work under the shadow of both, and it was proposed to start a tan-yard at Fort Protector, as Maryborough was for the moment called. Bellingham established another post, which became very important, to command the road from Dublin to Kilkenny, and thus make the Government less dependent on the House of Ormonde. The suppressed Carmelite convent at Leighlin Bridge required but little alteration, and the Barrow ceased to be a serious obstacle. The Lord Deputy kept twenty or thirty horses here with the greatest difficulty, the hay having to be brought from Carlow through a disturbed country. Irishmen were willing to settle and to make an example of peaceful cultivation, but they were in great fear of Lady Ormonde. Walter Cowley, formerly Solicitor-General and fomenter of discord between St. Leger and the late Earl, had little good to say of the no longer disconsolate widow, but praised Sir Francis Bryan for saying that he would not ‘borrow of the law as my Lord of Ormonde did.’ The expression was called forth by the action of the Idrone Ryans, who were frightened by the inquiries into tenure, and came to Lady Ormonde offering to convey their lands to her and her heirs; the object being to defeat the Act of Absentees. No doubt the cultivators would have been glad to pay an easy rent to a powerful neighbour, rather than have an active new landlord such as Cosby thrust upon them. Sir Richard Butler, some of whose misdeeds have been already mentioned, built a castle in O’More’s country without any title, and overawed the whole district of Slievemargy.[342 - Richard Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14, 1548; John Moorton to same, April 15, 1549; Anthony Colcloght to same, Feb. 1 and 13, and to Cahir MacArt, Jan. 27; Walter Cowley to Bellingham, March 14; Brian Jones to same, April (No. 35).]