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

Progress of the Reformation. Browne and Staples

Doctrinal Protestantism was not formally promulgated in Bellingham’s time; but the recognition of the royal supremacy was pretty general, for he would allow no disobedience. The Treasurer of St. Patrick’s, who was refractory, was severely reprimanded, and threatened with condign punishment. A Scot who preached at Kilmainham condemned the Mass, and Archbishop Browne, whose opinions were not perhaps quite fixed, was accused of inveighing against the stranger, and of maintaining that those who sided with him were ‘not the King’s true subjects.’ Means were, however, taken to spread the order of service which Browne had set on foot. The Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ave Maria were read and circulated in English, but the Mass was retained; a confused arrangement which could not last. Still, the men who controlled the Government and the young King were known to be favourable to the new doctrines, and the Scots emissary soon found a distinguished follower in the Bishop of Meath. Staples had at one time certainly held opinions less advanced than those of Browne, but he now went to Dublin and preached a strong Protestant sermon against the Mass. On returning to his own diocese he found that he had incurred universal hatred. An Irishman, whose infant he had christened and named after himself, desired to have the child re-baptized, ‘for he would not have him bear the name of a heretic.’ A gentleman refused to have his child confirmed ‘by him that denied the sacrament of the altar.’ The gossips in the market-place at Navan declared that if the Bishop came to preach there they would stay away, lest they should learn to be heretics. A lawyer in the neighbourhood told a crowd of people that Staples deserved to be burned, ‘for if I preached heresy so was I worthy to be burned, and if I preached right yet was I worthy that kept the truth from knowledge.’ ‘This gentleman,’ Staples quaintly adds, ‘loveth no sodden meat, but can skill only of roasting.’ Another lawyer, a judge, said it should be proved before the Bishop’s face that he preached against learning. The following is too interesting to omit: – ‘A beneficed man of mine own promotion came unto me weeping and desired me that he might declare his mind unto me without my displeasure. I said I was well content. My Lord, said he, before ye went last to Dublin ye were the best beloved man in your diocese that ever came in, and now ye are the worst beloved that ever came here. I asked why? “Why,” saith he, “ye have taken open part with the State that false heretic, and preached against the sacrament of the altar, and deny saints, and will make us worse than Jews: if the country wist how they would eat you;” and he besought me to take heed of myself, for he feared more than he durst tell me. “Ye have,” he said, “more curses than ye have hairs of your head, and I advise you for Christ sake not to preach at the Navan as I hear ye will do.” I said it was my charge to preach, and because there was most resort (God willing) I would not fail but preach there. Hereby ye may perceive what case I am in, but I put all to God.’ The Bishop spoke as became his office, but he was ‘afraid of his life divers ways.’[343 - Staples to – between Dec. 22 and 29, 1548. The letter is not addressed to Bellingham, but he must have seen it, as it is endorsed by his clerk. See also Walter Palatyne to Bellingham, Nov. 23, 1547, and Interrogatories for Archbishop Browne at the end of that year. The first Book of Common Prayer was not printed till 1550.]

Bellingham and Dowdall

Bellingham had information of what was going on in England by private as well as official correspondence. John Issam, a strong Protestant, who was afterwards made seneschal of Wexford, wrote from London an account of the variations of opinion upon the all-important question of the sacrament. ‘There is great sticking,’ he said, ‘about the blessed body and bloode of Jesus Christ, howbeit, I trust that they will conclude well in it, by the help of the Holy Spirit, without which such matters cannot well be tried; but part of our bishops that have been most stiff in opinions of the reality of His body there, as He was here in earth, should be in the bread, they now confess and say that they were never of that opinion, but by His mighty power in spirit, and leaveth His body sitting on the right hand of His Father, as our common creed testifieth; but yet there is hard hold with some to the contrary, who shall relent when it pleaseth God.’ Bellingham certainly did what he could to spread the reformed doctrines, but this was, perhaps, not much. His letter to Primate Dowdall, who had acknowledged the royal supremacy, but was inflexible on the question of the sacrament, is instinct with the spirit of Christian sincerity.

‘My Lord Primate,’ he says, ‘I pray you lovingly and charitably to be circumspect in your doings, and consider how God hath liberally given you divers gifts, and namely, of reputation among the people … Let all these in part be with the gratuity of setting forth the plain, simple, and naked truth recompensed, and the way to do the same is to know that which, with a mild and humble spirit wished, sought, and prayed for, will most certainly be given, which I pray God grant us both.’[344 - Bellingham to Dowdall, Dec. 1548; John Issam to Bellingham, Dec. 22; Richard Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14.]

Bellingham advances the royal supremacy

Bellingham could do nothing with Dowdall; but in the spring of 1549 all the priests in the Kilkenny district not physically incapable of travelling were summoned to meet the Lord Deputy and Council. It was ordered that the Attorney-General should exercise jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, and ‘abolish idolatry, papistry, the Mass sacrament, and the like.’ The Archbishop of Cashel seems to have had no great zeal for the work. Nicholas Fitzwilliam, Treasurer of St. Patrick’s, received a stinging rebuke for his hesitation to carry out the royal commands. The innovations were distasteful to most men in Ireland, but Bellingham was recognised as one who would use his patronage conscientiously, and not job in the usual style. John Brereton, a decided Protestant, recommended to him ‘for the love of God and the zeal that you have for the education of Christ’s flock,’ a poor priest who was willing to go into a certain district where he had friends, and where there was no one to declare the true worship. The suppliant, who was both learned and earnest, could expect favour from no nother’s (sic) hand, because he ‘is but poor and has no money to give as his adversaries do.’ Auditor Brasier told Somerset that ‘there was never Deputy in the realm that went the right way, as he doth, both for the setting forth of God’s Word to His honour, and to the wealth of the King’s Highness’ subjects.’ But these praises did not serve to prolong his term of office, and he left Ireland without effecting the reforms which he had at heart.[345 - Sovereign of Kilkenny to the Lord Deputy, April 26, 1549; Walter Cowley to same, June 25; Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14, 1548; John Brereton to Bellingham, 1548 (No. 174).]

Bellingham leaves Ireland, 1549. His character

Bellingham’s departure from Ireland followed pretty closely on the Protector’s eclipse, though it is not quite certain that it was caused by it. Warwick may have borne malice for past lectures, but the Lord Deputy seems to have defended himself successfully, and might have been sent back had he not excused himself on account of ill-health. The malady proved fatal, but he seems to have retained office till his death. There has been a tendency among those who find their ideal realised in a strong man armed, to represent Bellingham as a model ruler. It appears from his letters and from general testimony that he was honest, brave, loyal, and sincerely religious; but his incessant wars were very burdensome, and it is noted that he exacted the unpopular cess more stringently than its inventor St. Leger had done. But he was a true-dealing man, took nothing without punctual payment, and ‘could not abide the cry of the poor.’ From the love of gain, that common vice of provincial governors, he was absolutely free, and made a point of spending all his official income in hospitality, saying that the meat and drink in his house were not his own, but his dear master’s. For the King’s honour he paid his own travelling expenses, and insisted on doing the like even when Lord Baltinglass entertained him sumptuously. Alen, who criticised his official conduct so sharply, could not but allow that he was ‘the best man of war that ever he had seen in Ireland.’ The figure of the Puritan soldier has its charms; but the sword of the Lord and of Gideon is not a good instrument of civil government. Absolutism may be apparently successful under a beneficent despot, but who is to guarantee that his successor shall not be a villain or a fool? Bellingham’s forts did their own work, but his ascendency over lawyers in Dublin and ambitious chiefs in the country was purely personal, and had no lasting effect. There was much to admire in his character, but distance has lent it enchantment, and in practice not much permanent work could be done by a governor of whom the most striking fact recorded is that ‘he wore ever his harness, and so did all those whom he liked of.’[346 - Book of Howth; Ware; Hooker in Holinshed; Lodge’s Patentee Officer in Liber Hiberniæ. Bellingham embarked at Howth, Dec. 16, 1549.]

Bryan, Lord Justice. Mischief brewing

As soon as Bellingham had left Ireland the Council unanimously elected Bryan Lord Justice. The Irish, though overawed by the departed Deputy, had been plotting in the usual way, and after all that had passed Lord Thomond and O’Carroll were sworn allies. The Kavanaghs were known to be meditating mischief, and Desmond was not to be depended on. Lady Ormonde had been quarrelling with Lady Desmond, and Alen took credit to himself for having made a truce between them. To the usual elements of discord were added many rumours of Scotch and French invasions. O’Neill, O’Donnell, O’Dogherty, and others proposed to become subjects of France, in consideration of help from thence, and of the most Christian King’s good offices with the Pope. Monluc, Bishop of Valence, returning from his mission to the Scottish Court, was directed by Henry to take Ireland on his way, and to gain all the information possible. Sir James Melville, then a boy, accompanied him. ‘Before our landing,’ he says, ‘we sent one George Paris, who had been sent into Scotland by the great O’Neill and his associates, who landed in the house of a gentleman who had married O’Dogherty’s daughter, dwelling at the Loch edge. He came aboard and welcomed us, and conveyed us to his house, which was a great dark tower, where we had cold cheer – as herring and biscuit – for it was Lentroun.’ One De Botte, a Breton merchant, was also sent on secret service to Ireland apparently about the same time.[347 - Patrick Fraser Tytler’s England under Edward VI. and Mary. He quotes Melville’s Memoirs. See in particular the letter of Sir John Mason to the Privy Council, June 16, 1550. The ‘Loch’ mentioned by Melville must be Lough Foyle or Lough Swilly.]

Death of Bryan, 1550. Lady Ormonde meditates a third marriage

At this juncture Bryan died at Clonmel under circumstances apparently somewhat suspicious, for there was a post-mortem examination. He had refused to take any medicine, and the doctors, who detected no physical unsoundness, prudently declared that he died of grief; we are not told for what. ‘But whereof soever he died,’ says Alen, who was present both at the death and the autopsy, ‘he departed very godly.’ Lady Ormonde, who must have had a rooted dislike to single life, immediately recurred to her plan of marrying Gerald of Desmond, and the Chancellor had to remonstrate on the scandal of so soon supplying the place of two such noble husbands. The danger of putting both the Ormonde and Desmond interests in the same hand was obvious. The Geraldines were already too powerful, and what might not be the consequence of throwing the weight of the Butlers into the same scale, and making them more Irish and less loyal than they had been before? In the end she promised to remain sole for one year. ‘Nevertheless,’ said Alen, ‘I would my lords (if they take her marriage of any moment) trusted a woman’s promise no further than in such a case it is to be trusted!’ Her marriage took place in the end with beneficial results: for Lady Ormonde was able to keep some sort of peace between her husband and her son, and thus saved much misery and bloodshed. Immediately after her death the quarrel broke out anew, and ended only with the extinction of the House of Desmond.[348 - Instructions from Lord Chancellor Alen to Thomas Alen, Feb. 1550. Bryan died, Feb. 2, 1550.]

Brabazon, Lord Justice. Dowdall and Wauchop

On the day of Bryan’s death the Council elected Brabazon to succeed him, and the new Lord Justice soon afterwards went to Limerick to arrange disputes among the O’Briens and between Thomond and Desmond. Before the complicated complaints had been all heard his presence was required in Dublin on account of the disturbed state of the North; a most dangerous visitor having landed in Tyrconnel. This was the Papal Primate, Robert Wauchop – Dowdall, who had acknowledged the royal supremacy, though without accepting any of the new doctrines, not being acknowledged at Rome. The actual Primate kept himself well informed as to the movements of his rival, whom he understood to be a ‘very shrewd spy and great brewer of war and sedition.’ There were many French and Scotch ready to attack Ireland, and the former had already manned and armed two castles in Innishowen. Tyrone gave Dowdall letters which he had received from the French king, and the Archbishop, with his consent, forwarded them to the Council. Tyrone swore before the Dean and Chapter of Armagh that he had sent no answers, and that he would remain faithful to the King. He did not acknowledge Wauchop’s claims, but merely reported that he called himself Primate, and that he was accompanied by two Frenchmen of rank, who were supposed to be forerunners of countless Scotch and French invaders. The Council warned Tyrone that the French wished to conquer Ireland, and to reduce him and his clan to slavery and insignificance. He was reminded that they had been expelled from Italy and Sicily for their more than Turkish ferocity and rapacity. French messages were also sent to O’Donnell, but no letters, as he had transmitted some formerly received to the Government. He professed his loyalty, and declared that he would not recognise Wauchop unless the Council wished it.[349 - Lord Chancellor and Council to Tyrone, March 17, 1550: – ‘Tam ferox est illius nationis nobilitas ut sub Turcâ (quantumvis barbaro) mitius viveres quam sub illorum regimine … summo conatu libertatem patriæ, sanguinis libertatem et personæ vestræ dignitatem abolebunt.’ Dowdall to Alen, March 22; Brabazon to the Privy Council, March 26, with enclosures.]

Foreign intrigues. George Paris

In all these intrigues we find one George Paris, or Parish, engaged. He was a man whose ancestors had held land in Ireland, of which they had been deprived, and he was perhaps related to the traitor of Maynooth. This man came and went between France and Ireland, and though the threatened attack was averted by the peace concluded by England with France and Scotland, his services were not dispensed with. Henry said that the intrigues had ceased with the peace, but the English ambassador knew that his Majesty had had an interview with Paris less than a week before. Paris told everyone that all the nobility of Ireland were resolved to cast off the English yoke for fear of losing all their lands, as the O’Mores and O’Connors had done. He boasted that he himself had begged Trim Castle of the French king to make up for the lands which the English had deprived him of. The Constable spoke as smoothly and not much more truly than the King. Monluc was still employed in the matter, had interviews with Paris, and gave him money.[350 - Sir John Mason to the Privy Council, June 14, 1550; Foreign Calendar and Fraser Tytler, ut supra.]

St. Leger again Deputy. Alen displaced, 1550

After Bellingham’s death it was determined to send St. Leger over again, though he disliked the service, and though the Irish Chancellor continued to indite bulky minutes against him. It was felt that the two could hardly agree, and Alen was turned out of the Council and deprived of the great seal, which was given to Cusack. His advice was nevertheless occasionally asked. A year later he received 200 marks pension from the date of his dismissal, though he had only asked for 100l. Many charges were made against him, the truest, though he indignantly denied it, being that he could not agree with others. But after careful search no fault of any moment could be found in him, and he had served very industriously in Ireland for twenty-two years. With all his opportunities he declared that he had gained only nine and a half acres of Irish land. St. Leger and his friends, who were for conciliating rather than repressing the Irish, naturally disliked Alen. He had a decided taste for intrigue; but if we regard him as a mere English official, diligent and useful, though narrow and touchy, he must be allowed to have had his value.[351 - Letters of Croft and the two Bagenals, July 31, 1551; Alen to Cecil, April 5, 1551, and to the Privy Council, Aug. 10. The grant is calendared after the latter date. Having been chief of the commission for the dissolution of abbeys, Alen thought it prudent to go to England during Mary’s reign, but made his peace, became again a member of Council, and lived to congratulate Cecil on becoming once more Secretary of State.]

St. Leger adopts a conciliatory policy

The new Lord Deputy’s salary was fixed at 1,000l. a year from his predecessor’s death, though St. Leger, who alleged that he was already 500l. the poorer for Ireland, fought hard for 1,500l. He retained his old privilege of importing 1,000 quarters of wheat and 1,000 quarters of malt yearly, to be consumed only in Ireland. The appointment was evidently intended to restore some confidence among the natives, who had been scared by Bellingham’s high-handed policy. St. Leger having suggested that Irishmen should be ‘handled with the more humanity lest they by extremity should adhere to other foreign Powers,’ he was directed to ‘use gentleness to such as shall show themselves conformable,’ that great Roman maxim of empire which has been so often neglected in Ireland. Encouraging letters were to be sent to Desmond, Thomond, and Clanricarde; and to MacWilliam, the O’Donnells, O’Reilly, O’Kane, and MacQuillin. Pieces of scarlet cloth and silver cups to the value of 100l. were to be distributed to the best advantage among them. Particular instructions were given for reforming the military establishments, and officers were not to be allowed to have more than 10 per cent. of Irish among their men. Coyne and livery, the most fertile source of licence and disorder, was to be eschewed as far as possible. Irish noblemen were to be encouraged to exchange some of their lands for property in England, and thus to give pledges for good behaviour. In Leix and Offaly leases for twenty-one years were to be given; and religious reform was everywhere to be taken in hand. One very curious power was given to the Lord Deputy. When England was at war with France or the Empire, he was authorised to license subjects of those Powers to import merchandise under royal protection, excepting such articles as were under a special embargo.[352 - Instructions to Lord Deputy St. Leger, July 1550; Mr. St. Leger’s Remembrances for Ireland, same date. He was sworn in on Sept. 10.]

Hesitation about pressing the Reformation forward

St. Leger was ordered to set forth the Church service in English, according to the royal ordinances, in all places where it was possible to muster a congregation who understood the language. Elsewhere the words were to be translated truly into Irish, until such time as the people should be brought to a knowledge of English. But small pains were taken to carry out the latter design, and the Venetian agent reported, with practical accuracy, that the Form of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments was not enforced in Ireland or other islands subject to England where English was not understood. The book still remains that of the English colony, and of no one else in Ireland. Cranmer and Elizabeth both saw the necessity of attempting to reach the Irish through their own tongue, but neither were able to do it. When Bedell, at a later period, threw himself heart and soul into the cause, he received not only no encouragement, but positive opposition, from the Government; and in any case the breach was probably then past mending. Protestantism had become identified in the Irish mind with conquest and confiscation, a view of the case which was sedulously encouraged by Jesuits and other foreign emissaries.[353 - Instructions to St. Leger; Barbaro’s ‘Report on England’ in 1551, in the Venetian Calendar.]

Bad state of the garrisons

St. Leger lost no time in visiting the forts in Leix and Offaly, and he found there the disorder natural to, and perhaps pardonable in, an ill-paid soldiery. Bellingham had complained more than a year before that so many women of the country – Moabitish women he would have called them had he lived a century later – were received into Fort Protector. Some officers indignantly denied this, ‘and as to our misdemeanour in any point,’ they added, ‘we put that to the honestest men and women in the fort.’ If this report was true, discipline had been much relaxed in a year and nine months, for St. Leger found as many women of bad character as there were soldiers in the forts. Divine service there had been none for three years, and only one sermon. Staples, who was the preacher on that solitary occasion, ‘had so little reverence as he had no great haste eftsoons to preach there.’ There was also a want of garrison artillery; and eight pieces of cannon, with forty smaller pieces called bases, were demanded by the Master of the Ordnance. He also asked for 400 harquebusses, and for bows, which the Dugald Dalgettys of the day had not yet learned to despise. There were rumours of a French invasion, and it was proposed to send a strong expedition to Ireland – six ships with attendant galleys, 1,000 men, including many artificers to be employed in fortifying Baltimore, Berehaven, and other places in the south-west, and the mouths of the Bann and of Lough Larne in the north-east. The Constables of Carrickfergus and Olderfleet were ordered to put those castles in order for fear of Scots. Lord Cobham was designated as leader of the expedition, and the Irish Government were directed at once to survey Cork, Kinsale, and other southern harbours.[354 - St. Leger to the Lord High Treasurer, Sept. 27, 1550; Henry Wise and John Moorton, officers at Fort Protector, to Bellingham, Jan. 6, 1549; Articles for an expedition into Ireland, Jan. 7, 1551; St. Leger to Somerset, Feb. 18; Privy Council to Lord Deputy and Council, Jan. 26.]

St. George’s Channel unsafe. Want of money

Martin Pirry, Comptroller of the Mint, who brought over bullion collected in France and Flanders, had to stay seven days at Holyhead for fear of five great ships which he saw drifting about in the tideway. In the end he secured a quick and safe passage by hiring a twenty-five ton pinnace with sixteen oars, into which he put twenty-five well-armed men. St. Leger had been complaining bitterly that he could get no money out of the mint, although 2,000l. was owing. Pirry seems to have had only a limited authority, for though over 7,000l. was delivered by him on the Lord Deputy’s warrant, St. Leger still objected that he had to make bricks without straw, and to put port towns in a posture of defence without being allowed to draw for the necessary expenses.[355 - Martin Pirry to the Privy Council, Feb. 21, 1551; St. Leger to the same, March 23.]

Abortive scheme for fortifying in Munster. Apprehensions of French invasion

The expedition did not take place, but Sir James Croft was sent over with instructions to inspect all the harbours between Berehaven and Cork, to make plans of the most important, and to select sites for fortification; utilising existing buildings as much as possible, and taking steps for the acquisition of the necessary land. He was then to extend his operations as far east as Waterford, acting in all things in concert with the Lord Deputy. It is evident that things were in a state quite unfit to resist a powerful French armament; but the weather as usual was on the side of England, and of eighteen French vessels laden with provisions, more than one-half were lost in a storm off the Irish coast. This fleet was, no doubt, destined only for the relief of the French party in Scotland, and there does not seem to have been any real intention of breaking the peace with England. But the Irish exiles were unwilling to believe this. George Paris, who had been despatched from Blois about Christmas 1550, returned to France in the following spring, bringing with him an Irishman of importance. The Irish offered Ireland to Henry, and begged him to defend his own, saying that Wales would also rise as soon as foreign aid appeared. Their avowed object was ‘the maintenance of religion, and for the continuance of God’s service in such sort as they had received from their fathers. In the which quarrel they were determined either to stand or to die.’ It would be better to invade England than Ireland; for the English Catholics would receive an invader with open arms. Paris spoke much of the frequent conquests of England. No outward enemy, once landed, had ever been repulsed, and the thing was easier now than ever. The sanguine plotter talked loudly of all that had been promised him, and professed to believe that the Dauphin would soon be King of Ireland and Scotland at the very least. ‘With these brags, and such others, he filleth every man’s ears that he chanceth to talk withal.’ He had constant interviews with the Nuncio, but the French grew every day cooler. The English ambassador perceived that the Irish envoy was ‘not so brag,’ and at last reported that he had been denied help. He attributed this change of policy entirely to the fear of increasing the difficulties in which the Queen Dowager of Scotland already found herself.[356 - Instructions to Sir James Croft, Feb. 25, 1551, in Carew; Sir John Mason to the Privy Council, April 18, printed by Fraser Tytler.]

Difficulties in Ulster. Andrew Brereton

While Scots and Frenchmen threatened its shores, Ulster furnished more even than its normal share of home-grown strife. Captain Andrew Brereton, who seems to have been a son or grandson of Sir William Brereton, held Lecale as a Crown tenant at will. He was a man singularly unfit to deal with a high-spirited race like the O’Neills. When Tyrone, according to ancient Irish custom, sent a party to distrain for rent among the MacCartans, Brereton set upon them and killed several men, including two brothers of the Countess. To the Earl’s remonstrances he replied by calling him a traitor, and threatening to treat him as he had treated O’Hanlon – that is, to spoil him, slay his men, and burn his country. It is clear that Brereton was not actuated by any special love of the MacCartans, for he beheaded a gentleman of that clan – without trial. He forcibly expelled Prior Magennis from his farm on the church lands of Down; and Roger Broke, a congenial spirit, shut up the Prior in Dundrum Castle. Tyrone went to Dublin to welcome St. Leger on his arrival, and Brereton openly called him a traitor at the Council Board, in the presence of the Lord Deputy and of the Earls of Thomond and Clanricarde. The proud O’Neill of course took the accusation ‘very unkindly.’ St. Leger was of opinion that such handling of wild men had done much harm in Ireland; and the Council, while admitting that Tyrone was ‘a frail man, and not the perfectest of subjects,’ thought that this was not the way to make the best of him. Brereton had no better justification for his conduct than the gossip of one of MacQuillin’s kerne, who said that Tyrone had sent a messenger to the King of France to say that he would take his part against King Edward, and would send him Brereton and Bagenal as prisoners. Brereton was very properly relieved of his command in Lecale, on the nominal ground that he had refused to hold the Crown land there upon the Lord Deputy’s terms; which St. Leger evidently thought more likely to have weight with the English Council than any amount of outrages committed against the Irish. He was afterwards restored, and gave trouble to later governors.[357 - Articles against Andrew Brereton, Nov. 1550; St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 19, 1551. The Council in Ireland to the Privy Council, May 20.]

CHAPTER XVII.

FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI

The Reformation officially promulgated, 1551

No Parliament was held in Ireland during Edward VI.’s reign; and the official establishment of Protestantism is generally supposed to date from a royal order, dated Feb. 6, 1551, and promulgated by the Lord Deputy on the first day of the following month. But the new Liturgy had been already introduced, and copies had been forwarded to Limerick, and perhaps to other places. St. Leger, who felt that the Communion Service was the really important thing, had it translated into Latin for the benefit of those who had some tincture of letters, but who could not read English. The citizens of Limerick made no difficulty about receiving the new formulary; but the Bishop, John Quin, refused, and was therefore forced to resign. Quin, who was old and blind, had been willing to acknowledge the royal supremacy, but very naturally refused to embrace a new faith. It has often been stated that Quin accepted the Reformation; but it is not easy to see how this can be reconciled with the facts. His successor was William Casey, whose consecrators were Archbishop Browne, Lancaster of Kildare, and Devereux of Ferns. The two last had been consecrated by Browne and by Travers of Leighlin. Travers had only just been appointed himself, and was probably in pretty nearly the same condition.[358 - St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 19, 1551; Brady’s Episcopal Succession.]

Doctrinal conference in Dublin

Immediately after the arrival of the momentous order, St. Leger summoned the clergy to meet him in Dublin. To this assembly the royal mandate was read, as well as the opinions of certain English divines in favour of the proposed changes. Primate Dowdall at once protested. ‘For the general benefit of our well-beloved subjects,’ the King was made to say, ‘whenever assembled and met together in the several parish churches, either to pray or hear prayers read, that they may the better join therein in unity, hearts and voices, we have caused the Liturgy and prayers of the Church to be translated into our mother tongue of this realm of England.’ ‘Then,’ observed the Primate, ‘shall every illiterate fellow read Mass?’ ‘No,’ answered St. Leger with much force, ‘your Grace is mistaken; for we have too many illiterate priests among us already, who neither can pronounce the Latin nor know what it means, no more than the common people that hear them; but when the people hear the Liturgy in English, they and the priest will then understand what they pray for.’ This last observation might be true enough in Dublin, but it was singularly inapplicable to Ireland generally. The key-note of the controversy had, however, been struck, and it was clear that the Primate and the Lord Deputy occupied very different standpoints. Finding St. Leger a formidable antagonist, and seeing that the case was virtually prejudged, Dowdall somewhat forgot his habitual dignity, and threatened the Viceroy with the clergy’s curse. ‘I fear,’ was the answer, ‘no strange curse, so long as I have the blessing of that Church which I believe to be the true one.’ There was some further altercation about the Petrine claims to supremacy; and Dowdall, finding that he made no impression, left the hall with all his suffragans except Staples, and repaired to his own diocese. St. Leger then handed the King’s order to Browne, who received it standing. ‘This order, good brethren,’ said the Protestant Archbishop, ‘is from our gracious King, and from the rest of our brethren, the fathers and clergy of England, who have consulted herein, and compared the Holy Scriptures with what they have done; unto whom I submit, as Jesus did to Cæsar, in all things just and lawful, making no question why or wherefore, as we own him our true and lawful King.’[359 - This conference is detailed in Mant’s Church History, pp. 194, 199. See also Ware’s Life of Browne. The conference was held in St. Mary’s Abbey, the residence of Dowdall, he having refused to attend the Lord Deputy at Kilmainham.]

St. Leger, Browne, and Dowdall

The above proceedings show that St. Leger was at least in general agreement with the Protestant party, but he had certainly no wish to force the reformed doctrines on the reluctant Irish. Browne complained that he had publicly offered the sacrifice of the Mass in Christ Church, ‘after the old sort, to the altar then of stone, to the comfort of his too many like Papists, and the discouragement of the professors of God’s Word.’ The Archbishop found it convenient to forget that this was strictly according to law; and that the royal order, even admitting that it had all the power claimed for it, had not yet gone forth to alter the state of things established under Henry VIII. Browne could not deny that the Lord Deputy had made due proclamation of ‘the King’s Majesty’s most godly proceeding;’ but alleged that it was only for show, ‘while massing, holy water, Candlemas candles, and such like, continued under the Primate and elsewhere,’ without let or hindrance from the chief governor. Dowdall, he said, was ‘the next father in word and deed of Popery;’ the Viceroy a Gallio who did not scruple to say, ‘Go to, your matters of religion will mar all.’ St. Leger seems in good truth to have been laughing at the ex-friar. ‘My Lord of Dublin,’ he said, ‘I have books for your Lordship.’ Browne found them on examination ‘so poisoned to maintain the Mass with Transubstantiation, and other naughtiness (as at no time I have seen such a summary of Scriptures collected to establish the idolatry), clean contrary the sincere meaning of the Word of God and the King’s most godly proceedings.’ The Archbishop had copies taken, which he sent to the Privy Council. St. Leger was angry at this, and Browne says he threatened to do him harm, even should it cost 1,000l. The Archbishop intimated that the 1,000l. would be nothing to him, for that he had enriched himself by peculation, and attributed to him a degree of vindictiveness which does not seem really to have belonged to his character. Browne admits that the Lord Deputy called Dowdall before the Council for practising the old ritual, ‘who came and disputed plainly the massing and other things, contrary the King’s proceedings; and that he would not embrace them: whereat the Deputy said nothing.’ Sir Ralph Bagenal called the Primate an arrant traitor. ‘No traitor, Mr. Bagenal,’ said Lord Chancellor Cusack, who was Dowdall’s cousin; and the Primate continued in his old ways as long as St. Leger held the reins of government. The Lord Deputy even recommended Tyrone to ‘follow the counsel of that good father, sage senator, and godly bishop, my Lord Primate, in everything, and so ye shall do well.’ He made indeed no secret of his regard for Dowdall, whose high character was admitted by all but fanatics. ‘He is,’ he declared openly before more than a dozen persons in the hall of Dublin Castle, ‘a good man, and I would that all the Irishmen in Ireland spake so good English as he, and if they do no worse than he the King had been the better served.’[360 - Browne to Warwick, ut supra. Examination of Oliver Sutton, March 23, 1552.]

St. Leger has some idea of toleration

It was impossible that any secret policy could go on without Alen having a hand in it. St. Leger told him that the danger from both France and from the Emperor was much increased by the religious sympathies of the Irish, who, in civil matters, would like foreigners only in so far as they could profit by them. He ridiculed the notion of France annexing Ireland, though he thought it possible that Henry II. might make a diversion there to prevent England from interfering with him in Scotland or on the Continent. He thought the Emperor would be friendly for old acquaintance sake, but that he disliked the new fashions in religion; ‘and no wonder, seeing that in that matter daily at home among ourselves one of us is offended with another.’ St. Leger, in short, was a statesman who could admire moral excellence in men of different opinions; and Browne was a fanatic. ‘God help me!’ said the Deputy. ‘For my own part, knowing the manners and ignorance of the people, when my lords of the Council willed me to set forth the matters of religion here, which to my power I have done, I had rather they had called me into Spain or any other place where the King should have had cause to make war, than burdensome to sit further here. I told my lords no less before my coming away.’ Alen had refused to put this conversation in writing, though urged to do so by Browne; saying that he wished St. Leger no harm, though he had lost all through him. He said as little as might be against him even when questioned afterwards by the Council. After his interview with the Lord Deputy, Alen went to sup with Lockwood, Dean of Christ Church, and found there the Archbishop and Basnet, late Dean of St. Patrick’s. When the servants had gone the conversation turned upon St. Leger, whom Browne attacked on the grounds already mentioned, saying that he was but a ‘dissimular in religion.’ He was, in fact, a thoroughly secular politician, wise and resolute, and willing to carry out orders from the Government; but not pretending to like the plan of forcing an English-made religion upon the Irish, and administering it in practice as gently as possible. He was really in advance of his time, and had formed some notion of religious liberty. That he sympathised with the old creed there is not the smallest reason to suppose. ‘They name me a Papist,’ he said. ‘I would to God I were to try it with them that so nameth me;’ and he was accused in Mary’s reign of writing satirical verses against Transubstantiation, which shows that his opinions were not supposed to be anti-Protestant. He would have had things stay as they were under Henry VIII; the royal supremacy acknowledged, and doctrinal changes left to the action of time, persuasion, and increased enlightenment.[361 - St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 19, 1551. Deposition of Sir John Alen, March 19, in the deponent’s own hand. ‘The Bishop of Kildare (Lancaster),’ he says, ‘came to me persuading me on his behalf to put in writing the words Mr. St. Leger spoke to me in Kilmainham, to whom I made this answer, “Show my lord that albeit I love his little toe better than all Mr. St. Leger’s body, yet I will do nothing against truth.”’]

These views not in favour in England

But these ideas did not recommend themselves to the English Council, which had now come under Warwick’s influence. Neither the bishopric of Leighlin nor that of Ossory was granted to St. Leger’s chaplain, James Bicton; though his patron strenuously defended him against the charge of Papal leanings, declaring that there was no more competent man in Ireland, nor one who had better set forth God’s Word. Bicton, who had been formerly chaplain to the Earl of Ormonde, was of Irish birth, though educated at Oxford, and was at all events not one of the very ignorant priests whom St. Leger cast up against his friend the Primate. He became Dean of Ossory, and had a large chest of books at Kilkenny, besides a wine cask full at Bristol, for which he had paid 40l.; and he seems to have supported a poor Irish scholar at Oxford. It would be difficult to say anything so good of Travers, who was preferred before him at Leighlin. Travers owed his promotion to his cousin the Master of the Ordnance, whose chaplain he had been; but he did no credit to his blood, scarcely anything being recorded of him but that he oppressed his clergy and made money out of his see.[362 - Bicton’s curious will is printed in Cotton’s Fasti, vol. ii. Appendix.]

Sir James Croft succeeds St. Leger, 1551

Whatever was the exact cause of St. Leger’s recall, it is likely that he was glad to escape from the thankless Irish service. Sir James Croft, his successor-designate, was already in Ireland, and he handed him the reins without waiting for his patent. Croft was directed to put the seaports of Munster and Ulster into a defensible state; but the English Government showed a bad example, for though Argyle was plotting in the North and MacCarthy in the South, the artillery was sent over in charge of a clerk only. MacCarthy was to be apprehended if possible, and also George Paris, who was ‘a common post between Ireland and France,’ sailing in French ships which were to be overhauled in search of him. When the thousand men who had been promised arrived at Cork there was no money to pay them. Croft and his advisers begged and borrowed till both credit and provisions were well-nigh exhausted in the barren wilds of West Cork. Soldiers unpunctually paid could not but be dangerous, and there was no sort of justice to be obtained in the country districts. ‘If in England,’ said Crofts, using an apt illustration, ‘the place of justice were appointed only at Dover, I think no man doubts but the people would soon grow out of order.’ A thorough reform in the official circle, head and members, was necessary before any great improvement could be expected in the people. Before leaving Cork, Croft did what he could to secure local justice by drawing up regulations for maintaining the peace of the district under Desmond’s general superintendence, not greatly differing from those already supposed to be in force, but with a clause which shows how the Puritan spirit was working. The Earl and those joined in authority with him were to have a special care to ‘set forth divine service according to the King’s proceeding, and diligently to look for the punishment of harlots, for which purposes they may call for the bishops and ministers within their circuit, giving them warning of their duties to see them punished according to the orders taken in that behalf.’ MacCarthy More, who had submitted, was required with his clansmen to swear allegiance to Edward VI. as King, and also as ‘supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland, and clearly to renounce the Bishop of Rome and all his authority,’ and take his ‘oath on the Bible’ to obey all laws, civil and ecclesiastical, set forth by the King and his successors.

Croft proposes to colonise in West Munster

Archbishop Browne, having got rid of St. Leger, was loud in praise of his successor’s activity, who was the first governor to visit Baltimore (Ballagheyntymore). Crofts proposed to the Council that a colony of married Englishmen with their wives and families should be planted in this remote place, who, after serving as soldiers for a time, would be able to protect themselves as others had done at Calais. But the King blamed Croft for visiting Baltimore at all, since he had not the power to do anything there. In August the time for fortifying was already past; and there was a danger that Spanish fishermen might discover the Lord Deputy’s intentions, and even find means to forestall them.[363 - Croft to Warwick, May 1551; Instructions to Desmond and others July 1; Archbishop Browne to Warwick, Aug. 6.]

The Ulster Scots attacked. Failure at Rathlin, 1551

The affairs of Ulster next engaged the attention of Croft. The Scots had lately made themselves supreme from the Giant’s Causeway to Belfast; and it was determined to attack them there, and, if possible, to capture the island stronghold of Rathlin, whither the MacDonnells had transported all the cattle and horses taken by them in their late raid. A hosting was accordingly proclaimed for thirty-one days, and the army mustered at Carrickfergus. The roads being impassable for carts, everything had to be carried on pack horses or by sea. The Lord Deputy himself went by land through the country of several Irish chiefs, of whose intelligence Chancellor Cusack, who tells the story, formed a favourable opinion. Some of them joined the expedition. Meat was abundant throughout the four days’ journey, at the rate of 10s. a beef and 16d. a mutton; much less than the prices of the Pale. Leaving the heavy baggage at Carrickfergus, Croft advanced to Glenarm, where he encamped. No Scots appeared, and but few cattle; but immense stores of corn were found. There lay at Ballycastle four small vessels which the English men-of-war had captured, and some of the prisoners from the Scots were brought before the Lord Deputy. The result of their examination was a resolution at once to attack Rathlin, where James MacDonnell and his brethren were. It was found that the captured boats would only carry 200 men, and it was therefore resolved not to risk a landing unless some more of the Scots vessels could be taken, or unless the men in the island yielded to the fear of the cannon upon the English ships. Sir Ralph Bagenal and Captain Cuffe approached the island with about 100 men, but the galleys which they wished to seize were at once driven in shore, and a threatening crowd of Scots hung about the landing-place, and took no notice of the fire from the ships, which was probably too vague to endanger them much. The tide was ebbing, and the invaders seemed to run no great risk; but the Race of Rathlin, even in the finest weather, is never quite calm, and a sudden reflux wave lifted Cuffe’s boat high and dry on to the rocks. The men, about twenty-five, were slain on the spot, the officers taken and held by James MacDonnell as pledges for the return of the goods taken from him about Glenarm, and for the release of his brother Sorley Boy, who was a prisoner in Dublin. Croft was obliged to yield on both points, and the whole expedition ended in failure. The threat of complaining to the Scots Government was not likely to weigh much with MacDonnell, who was on good terms with the anti-English party.[364 - Cusack to Warwick, Sept. 27, 1551.]

Disturbed state of Ulster