Kildare visits England in 1515. His restless policy.
Meanwhile, the Lord Deputy trod in his father’s footsteps. He made successful raids on the O’Mores and O’Reillys, and for slaying many of the latter had a grant of the customs of Strangford and other places in Down. A visit to England in 1515 resulted in permission to hold a Parliament in the following year, but it produced no legislation of importance. He took and dismantled Leap Castle, the stronghold of the O’Carrolls, which his father had failed to gain, and he surprised Clonmel by a sudden march, though we know not what offence that town had given him. When he was busy in the north, where he destroyed O’Neill’s castle at Dungannon and stormed Dundrum, which was defended by Magennis, the O’Carrolls rose again and invaded Meath. Again Kildare visited Ely and destroyed another castle. The history of two viceroyalties may indeed be told in a single sentence. Every year or two the Earl of Kildare harried some Irish country, and then reported such and such execution done upon the King’s enemies. There was no attempt to keep the peace among the natives, the highest policy being the setting of one chief against another. The O’Neills and O’Donnells continued their everlasting feuds, and nearly every tribe was constantly at war. Occasionally they made foreign alliances, as in the case of O’Donnell, who was a travelled man. A French knight coming on a visit to St. Patrick’s Purgatory was hospitably received by the chief, and offered to recover Sligo from the O’Connors. The offer was accepted, and in due course an armed vessel appeared in Killybegs Harbour. Sligo was battered from the sea, the O’Donnells co-operating by land, and the castle surrendered. We hear no more of the mysterious Frenchman.80 Ware says that Ireland was peaceable during the year 1518, but the Irish annalists tell a very different story.81
Miserable state of the country.
The chiefs of English race were almost as restless as the Celts whom they affected to despise, and the state of the Pale was as bad as bad could be. John Kite, a Londoner, who had been promoted to the throne of Armagh by Wolsey’s influence, informed his patron that he tried to comfort the people by promising that the King would soon come to reform the land. He insisted very reasonably that the King was as much bound to maintain order and justice in Ireland as in England herself. The sea was no safer than the land, and the ship which brought the Archbishop from Chester had been attacked by two pirates; but the men of Drogheda—no thanks to the Government—had captured the rovers. Even the Countess Dowager of Kildare, who was the daughter of an English knight, complained that her stepson allowed O’Neill to levy tribute on her lands, and that her property and that of her dependents was laid waste. Portions that had escaped the Irish were seized by the Earl’s own steward. Kildare had many other accusers, and was at length summoned over to give an account. He was allowed to appoint a Deputy, and nominated his cousin, Maurice Fitzgerald of Lackagh, who was soon afterwards killed by the O’Mores. But the cry of the land had been heard at last, and Henry resolved to send over a governor whom he could trust. The lot fell upon Thomas, Earl of Surrey, the son and companion in arms of the victor of Flodden, whose influence at Court probably made his absence desirable to Wolsey.82
Thomas Earl of Surrey, Lord-Lieutenant, 1520. Anarchy.
The first thirty pages of the printed State Papers are taken up with a report to the King on the state of Ireland, founded on an earlier document, but corrected and brought down nearly to the date of Surrey’s appointment. It discloses a state of things calculated to try the ablest governor. In Ulster and Connaught, in the counties of Waterford, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Kerry, Carlow, Westmeath, and Wicklow, and in parts of Kildare and Wexford, there was neither magistrate nor sheriff. Districts wholly or partially peopled by men of English race were under black-rent to the native chiefs. This odious tax was paid by the Savages of Lecale in Down to the O’Neills of Clandeboye. The great chief of Tyrone levied his dues in Louth. Meath and Kildare were tributary to O’Connor Faly, Wexford to the Kavanaghs, Kilkenny and Tipperary to O’Carroll, Limerick to the O’Briens, and Cork to the MacCarthies. MacMurrough Kavanagh, who in the eyes of the natives represented the ancient royalty of Leinster, actually received eighty marks out of an almost empty exchequer. The sum of the several black-rents amounted to 740l., and this was at a time when a soldier received fourpence a day. Dublin was in constant danger, and one of Henry’s first acts was to grant 20l., a year to the citizens for repairing their walls, which had crumbled through decrease of population, pestilence, and Irish violence. A line drawn from Dundalk to Kells, from Kells to Kilcullen Bridge, and thence by Ballymore Eustace, and Tallaght to Dalkey, enclosed the whole actual Pale, upon which fell all the expenses of an establishment intended to meet the wants of all Ireland. The King’s taxes had to be paid, coyne and livery were extorted, horses and carriages were requisitioned for the public service; and with all this the Government could give no protection, no judge went circuit, and black-rent was perforce paid in addition. ‘The King’s army in England,’ said Henry’s informant, ‘is the commons, the King’s army in Ireland is such as oppress the commons.’ The nobility and gentry copied the Government, and it was more than suspected that they dreaded any reform which would force them to obey the law; ‘for there is no land in all this world that has more liberty in vices than Ireland, and less liberty in virtue.’ The Church showed no better example than the lay magnates; ‘for there is no archbishop nor bishop, abbot nor prior, parson nor vicar, nor any other person of the Church, high or low, great or small, that useth to preach the Word of God, saving the poor friars’ beggars.’ Some Irish chiefs kept better order than the Government; ‘but not to the intent that his subjects should escape harmless, but to the intent to devour them by himself, like as a greedy hound delivereth the sheep from the wolf.’
Remedies suggested.
Ireland has never lacked physicians, though she has often been nothing bettered by them. The most obvious means to strengthen the English power was to make the men of the Pale keep arms and practice their use; and this had been the constant cry of governors and legislators for many generations. Henry had directed Kildare to get an Act passed obliging every merchant trading from England to Ireland to bring a pound’s worth of bows and arrows for every 20l. of wares, so as to prevent the King’s subjects from applying themselves to Irish archery. Patrick Finglas, Baron of the Exchequer, was less sanguine than the writer of the State Paper which has been so largely quoted. That reformer ventured to prophesy that if his advice were taken the war of Ireland would cease for ever, the King would recover Constantinople and die Emperor of Rome, and Ireland once reduced to order would be ‘none other than a very paradise, delicious of all pleasance.’ But Finglas admitted that reform must necessarily be gradual, and advised the King to confine himself at first to the reclamation of Leinster. He recommended that the chief abbeys and castles should be entrusted to Englishmen, from Bray Head round the coast to Dunbrody on the Suir, and inland from Baltinglass and Carlow along the Barrow to Ross. The Wicklow Highlanders would be thus bridled and unable to attack Kildare. Athy and other places were to be held against