Powers of this Commission.
The control of legislation was also given to the Commissioners, who were to see various Acts for the establishment of royal authority in Church and State duly passed. They were to inquire as to the claims of clerical proctors to interfere in Parliament, were themselves to have a right of entry as the King’s councillors, and were to expound the royal policy ‘with all their wit and dexterity, and with such stomach, where they shall perceive any man frowardly, perversely bent to the let and impeachment of the King’s purpose in the same, as they may the rather by their wisdom both conduce the thing to effect and reconcile the parties that before would show themselves so wilful and obstinate.’ Messages to this effect were sent to both Houses, both Wolsey and Cromwell relying upon a species of intimidation of which Charles I.’s attempt on the five members is the last recorded example. The Commissioners afterwards exercised the power of dissolving Parliament.
The King has vague good intentions.
The Commissioners were to examine charges of taking money from the rebels which were brought against many men highly placed in Ireland; Henry rightly supposing that many nominal subjects connived at treason, as in the case of O’Brien’s Bridge, which had cost much to take and to demolish, and which was now as strong and as troublesome as ever. But he did not choose to see that want of money was the chief cause of this failure. He was indeed, he said, determined to make a full reformation some day, and the information now collected would be very useful when the convenient season arrived. In the meantime, the Commissioners were to reduce the garrison to 340 men.
The Commissioners arrive in Ireland, 1537. Grey’s activity against the Irish.
St. Leger and his companions set out early in August, but were detained by adverse winds about Holyhead, and did not arrive at Dublin till the middle of September. Grey had unusually strong reasons for exertions, and he begged hard for money and artillery. The pay of the army was twelve months in arrear. O’Connor was coshering among his friends ‘more liker a beggar, than he that ever was a captain or ruler of a country,’ and making vain suits daily to the Government. But Grey had not caught him, and he could be submissive enough until what was left of his corn had been saved; his neighbours, English and Irish, thinking it more prudent to shelter an enterprising rebel than to run risks for a Government which could not protect its friends. Grey, who habitually used strong language, characterises these prudent people as ‘having as much falsehood remaining in them as all the devils of hell.’ Having, as he supposed, made O’Connor ‘as low as a dog were for the bone,’ he applied himself to the Kavanaghs, whose chief, Cahir MacArt, had married a Geraldine. It had been often proposed to extirpate them and to colonise the country. The Lord Deputy now entered Carlow, burned some castles of the O’Nolans between Newtownbarry and Tullow, forced Cahir MacArt to give hostages, and then turned sharply upon Ely O’Carroll, where O’Connor had first found a refuge. He had now the help of Ossory, who was always glad to weaken a neighbour, and of Cahir O’Connor, who was as anxious as his brother to divert attention from the Offaly corn. He passed unopposed through the lands of the Fitzpatricks, O’Mores, O’Molloys, and MacGeohegans, received O’Carroll’s submission, and then entered Tipperary, where he took a castle belonging to O’Meagher, the chief of Ikerrin. O’Connor came in on safe-conduct, and paid 300 marks for his son, who was given up to him. Grey refused to trust him, and begged Cromwell never to allow his restoration; and the event proved Grey right, though he soon forgot his own advice. He now announced to the minister that he was beginning to understand the Irish nature, and that the King needed only to be in earnest. He was right in blaming constant changes of policy, but like most soldiers he failed to see the real difficulties of the Irish problem.189
The O’Donnells. Death of Hugh Oge, 1537.
It was now just a quarter of a century since Hugh Oge O’Donnell, then on his return from Rome, had been received with honour at the Court of Henry VIII. Deeply impressed by what he saw there, and aware of the impossibility of uniting all Irish tribes against the stranger, he had always striven to keep English intruders at bay by remaining on good terms with the Government, and had exerted his strength only to subdue his neighbours on the side furthest removed from the Pale. He had thus extended his sway over the modern counties of Roscommon and Sligo, and over great portions of Fermanagh, Mayo, and Galway, and even of Down and Antrim. He had forced or persuaded the O’Neills to acknowledge his claims to the disputed sovereignty over Innishowen, Raphoe, and Fermanagh; and the Irish generally were so much impressed by his wisdom and prowess that they supposed him to be Hugh the Valiant, the promised Celtic Messiah, who was to redress or avenge the wrongs of Erin. When it seemed clear that this was not so, the dreamers of dreams declared that as he had failed the deliverer would never come. His panegyrists reckon among his titles to fame that ‘the seasons were favourable, so that sea and land were productive:’ it is more to the purpose that he executed strict justice and repressed thieves. Like most Irish chiefs, he had difficulties with his children, and his valiant son Manus was discarded at the instance of a mistress whom the old chief had brought into his house. For this and for other sins he made such reparation as he could by a late repentance, donned the cord and cowl of St. Francis, and died in the odour of sanctity. He was buried in his religious dress in the monastery which his father had built at Donegal for friars of the strict observance; and Manus was at once acknowledged both by the tribesmen and by O’Neill, and was inaugurated at Kilmacrenan with the usual ceremonies.190
Disturbances in the North.
The new chief at once took up the thread of his father’s policy by invading Connaught, and at the same time making loyal professions to Grey. He had, he wrote, been tempted to rebellion by all the disaffected lords in the South and West, but was determined to take no advice but that of the King and his Deputy. As soon as he heard of Hugh O’Donnell’s death, Grey at once repaired to the borders of Ulster. The galleys of O’Neill and his Scotch allies had threatened a fortified settlement at Ardglass on the coast of Down, and the Deputy burned to invade Tyrone; but the Council dissuaded him, and the receipt of Manus O’Donnell’s letter gave hopes of settling the North by peaceful means. Some thought Grey too fond of making aimless raids, and Alen made some sensible remarks on the subject. ‘I would not,’ he wrote to St. Leger, ‘have the Deputy representing the King’s Majesty’s person and estate be a common skurrer for every light matter; but, when he should begin a war, begin it upon a just good ground, and when it were so begun, to be so profoundly executed, that all other should take example thereby.’ But the King thought only of increasing the revenue and diminishing the army.191
Grey is baffled by the O’Connors.
Grey had been sanguine enough to believe that his work in Offaly would be lasting, but, as Henry had partly foreseen, O’Connor’s return had undone it all. Cahir was a fugitive, and the floods protected Offaly, where the corn had been safely garnered in. At last the waters subsided, and Grey reached Brackland by the old road through Westmeath. O’Connor escaped into O’Doyne’s country, the modern barony of Tinnahinch, which Grey and Richard Butler proceeded to ravage. While thus employed the scattered troops were surprised by O’Connor, and some were killed. The Lord Deputy was just able to destroy or carry away the corn stored at Geashill, and to return to Dublin without having seen the enemy. To gain time till the season of long days came round again, Grey gave a safe-conduct to O’Connor, who proposed to visit Dublin. ‘But shortly herein to conclude,’ as Brabazon puts it, ‘the said traitor and his brother Cahir fell to agreement and concord, so that at this presents they both remain in Offaly.’ St. Leger, who had a cooler temper than Grey, saw the impossibility of subduing even a single clan by desultory hostings. ‘The country,’ he said, ‘is much easier won than kept.’ To overrun Offaly was a small thing, but it could only be united to the Pale by the costly expedient of fixed garrisons. O’Connor had got back his son, and indeed neither he nor any Irishman had much regard for promises or for the fate of hostages.192
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