The indefatigable Cusack, whose great idea was the conciliation of Ireland by arrangements with the native nobility, was as anxious to obtain terms for Desmond as for Shane. The Earl was tired of his detention in England, where he was hard pressed for so moderate a sum as 4l. He agreed to be responsible for order in Munster, to see that the Queen got her feudal dues, and to pay her a tax of 4d. a year on every cow. He promised to put down the Brehon law, as well as the bards or rhymers who seem to have been thought still more important; ‘for that they do by their ditties and rhymes made to divers lords and gentlemen in Ireland, in the commendation and high praise of extortion, rebellion, rape, raven, and other injustice, encourage those lords and gentlemen rather to follow those vices than to leave them.’ For every shilling paid to these men, two were to be forfeited to the Queen, whose Commissioners were to have power to fine the rhymers at discretion.73
It is probable that neither Cusack’s intercession nor Desmond’s promises would have prevailed, had not the Earl’s enforced absence left Munster in confusion. A dispute about the title to Kilfeacle was one difficulty, and the legal question cannot have been very hard to decide. But Desmond may have distrusted the impartiality of lawyers rather than the justice of his cause, and he preferred the old way of deciding lawsuits. His brother John spoiled the Butlers, while Ormonde, who was forbidden to retaliate, poured forth his griefs to Sussex. With just pride he dilated upon the loyalty of his ancestors, who had always been able to defend themselves, and to take and keep the Desmond’s goods. His own services were not small, but for fear of disobeying orders he had to stand by, while he and his suffered more in two or three years than his forefathers had in two centuries. Towns were burned, women and children murdered, half Kilkenny and Tipperary lay waste. ‘All this spoil, I assure your lordship, doth not so much grieve me as that the Earl of Desmond with his evil doings is like to speed as well as I that with my service have deserved at least to be restored to my own.’ In trying to defend his property, Ormonde’s brother John had been dangerously, if not mortally wounded. The Earl was forced to see all this, and do nothing. ‘My lord, you see what I get by sufferance; my brother left as dead, and mine enemies living upon the spoil of my goods. My lord, who shall render my brother his life if he die? Shall I live and suffer all this? If I may not avenge my brother on these disobedient Geraldines, as you are a just governor lend your force against them, and let not my obedience be the cause of my destruction.’ He begged that in case of Desmond being sent back to Ireland, he might at least be detained in Dublin until restitution should be made, and the rebels delivered to Sussex to be ‘justified.’ Ormonde threw out the significant hint that, failing this, he would leave his estate to take care of itself, and go to the Queen, ‘like some other private men.’74
Desmond’s head was in the lion’s mouth, and he professed loyalty, while doubting the capacity of the Munster chiefs for civil life. If he was expected to do anything he must have guns and gunners to take castles, and have the right to arrest malefactors in the corporate towns. The Queen was silent on these points, but urged Desmond to put down private war, ‘which hurts the innocent, to the great displeasure of Almighty God, and to our dishonour, whereof we pray you to have due regard.’ She ordered him to wait at Dublin for Cusack, whose help he had himself asked. ‘The Queen’s sword,’ she said, ‘shall touch the guilty, and no other shall be drawn.’ Brave words! but much belied by facts.75
CHAPTER XXII.
1564 AND 1565
The trouble which it cost Wrothe and Arnold to reach Ireland pretty accurately foreshadowed the trouble which awaited them there. After waiting a long time at Holyhead they at last ventured to sea, but were taken aback before they gained mid-Channel, and had to choose between scudding under bare poles towards Ulster, or returning to Wales. They chose the latter course, but failed to make the harbour. They lay for a time under the shelter of some rocks, and were glad to scramble ashore at three o’clock on a February morning, wet and sick, but safe. Nine days later they were more fortunate, and reached Dublin to find that Leix and Offaly were again in rebellion, and that the financial confusion had not been exaggerated. All captains, castellans, sheriffs, and municipal officers were at once called on to produce accounts. The inquiry into the musters was begun by demanding an accurate return of all changes and vacancies in the Lord-Lieutenant’s own company. Sussex said he was ready to obey the Queen in all things, but that this had never been required of any chief governor, and was, in fact, out of his power. The debts to the Crown were great, and many of them desperate. There was not one groat in the Treasury, and the 11,000l. which the Commissioners brought was quite inadequate. The Pale and the wild Irish were at daggers drawn, for the former clung to their own customs and bye-laws, and looked for the Queen’s protection in their attempts at self-government. The Church was in no better case than the State, but there was a pretty general wish to have St. Patrick’s turned into a University. The Commissioners recommended that the judges should put the Act of Uniformity generally in force, ‘not meddling with the simple multitude now at the first, but with one or two boasting mass men in every shire, that it may be seen that the punishment of such men is meant.’76
It soon became clear that Wrothe was not exactly the fittest man for the work. He was anxious to do right, but very nervous about exceeding the letter of his commission, and from the first wishing to be recalled. He fell into a fever which he felt certain would be attributed to riotous living, and he assured Cecil that he seldom took more than one meal in twenty-four hours, which was not the way to preserve health. His sense of the general corruption made it hard for him to gain friends, though he was generally praised for his willingness to work hard. The whole rapacious pack of jobbers longed to be rid of him, for he was bent on even-handed justice, a scarce commodity, and not in demand with any party. The Queen was considered fair game for every robber. Arnold, a man cast in a much rougher mould, had little regard for his colleague’s feelings, and a coolness soon sprung up between them. On Sussex obtaining sick leave, the general government was entrusted to Arnold, and the new Lord Justice expected Wrothe to do the business of the Commission single-handed. He was willing enough to take routine work on himself, but declined to be responsible for any matter of moment unless Arnold was joined with him in it. ‘God deal with me,’ he wrote, ‘as I have meant to serve the Queen here. My mind is troubled and my conscience, for God’s sake help me… Our bowls here be so much biassed, and I have no skill but with upright bowls, and therefore unfit for this alley.’77
After a partial examination of the public accounts, Auditor Dixe estimated that the Queen’s debts were between 30,000l. and 40,000l. The victualler and the officers engaged on fortifications gave in their accounts, but they were full of mistakes. The cessors of the Pale, who were very numerous and often very incompetent, were slow to produce their books. Captains of companies delivered muster-rolls from May 1560, when they had been fully paid off by the Lord-Lieutenant’s warrant, but declined to do so for the previous year on the ground that it was contrary to custom. In many cases the books were not forthcoming, but this was not unnatural in the case of officers who constantly changed their quarters, and who did not expect any further question to arise. The real fault was in the Government. We are accustomed to clock-work regularity, and can scarcely imagine the loose way in which things were done even much later than Elizabeth’s days. When Lord Shelburne joined Colonel Wolfe’s regiment, the future hero of Quebec told him that he must not