The Savages in Down.
Foiled in this attempt, which can hardly be described as otherwise than treacherous, Grey determined to chastise the Savages, who had refused to pay rent to Brabazon, the King’s tenant in Lecale. This old English family had become quite Hibernicised, and were now bringing Scotch mercenaries into the country. Various castles were taken and delivered to Brabazon, who also took charge of Dundrum, an important stronghold belonging to Magennis, which commanded the entry to Lecale on the land side. The Scots fled, leaving corn, butter, and other rural plunder behind. Grey was much struck by the fertility of the district, which is still famous. ‘I never,’ he said, ‘saw a pleasanter plot than Lecale for commodity of the land, and divers islands in the same environed in the sea, which were soon reclaimed and inhabited, the King’s pleasure known.’215
Labours of St. Leger’s Commission.
Sir Anthony St. Leger and his brother Commissioners arrived in Ireland early in September 1537, and lost no time in endeavouring to carry out the King’s plan. By November they had surveyed most of the King’s lands in Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Dublin, and Kildare. The general result of their observations was that they had seen ‘divers goodly manors and castles, the more part of them ruinous, and in great decay, the towns and lands about them depopulate, wasted, and not manured; whereby hath ensued great dearth and scarcity of all manner victuals.’ But few applications were made for leases, because there was no security, and they saw the necessity of placing a few castles in a defensible state. Within reach of the walls there was no difficulty in getting tenants. By Christmas the survey was finished, and an increased desire to take leases was quickly manifested; but some lands were still unlet. Two thousand marks in money and securities had been collected for the King, ‘and much more,’ the Commissioners reported, ‘would have been levied, in case that men had not of late been sore charged with service doing to his Highness here, whereby we be constrained to look on them with more favourable eye.’216
The public accounts.
Brabazon reported that the Commissioners had done their work well. The passing of his own three years’ account was a yet more difficult matter. They found it tedious and intricate, both from its nature and from the fact that there were no records of the King’s ancient inheritance, or of escheats. Brabazon’s own arrangements were good, but all before his time was chaos. ‘Every keeper,’ said the Master of the Rolls, ‘for his time, as he favoured, so did either embezzle, or suffer to be embezzled, such muniments as should make against them and their friends, so that we have little to show for any of the King’s lands or profits in these parts: it is therefore necessary that from henceforth all the rolls and muniments to be had be put in good order in Bermingham’s Tower, and the door thereof to have two locks, and the keys thereof one to be with the Constable, and the other with the Under-Treasurer, which likewise it is necessary to be an Englishman born; and that no man be suffered to have loan of any of the said muniments, nor to search, view, or read any of them there, but in the presence of one of the keepers aforesaid.’ The accounts were nevertheless put in order by March; and having received very gracious thanks from the King, St. Leger and his colleagues returned to England, ‘not,’ as they were careful to note, ‘for that we be weary to serve his Grace, but for because we be very loth to spend any more of his treasure, than we see time to serve him.’ Aylmer and Alen, by the King’s especial orders, accompanied the High Commissioners to England.217
Cromwell and the Irish service.
The official politicians of Ireland generally took care to be on good terms with the virtual ruler of England, and to watch for every sign of change in the distribution of royal favours. Cromwell was therefore well bespattered with flattery; but there were murmurs, some at least of which reached his ears. St. Leger the discreet may or may not have glanced obliquely at the Lord Privy Seal when he said of himself that ‘he had too long abstained from bribery to begin now.’ But his colleague George Paulet was more outspoken, and declared openly that ‘the Lord Privy Seal drew every day towards his death, and that he escaped very hardly at the last insurrection, and that he was the greatest briber in England, and that he was espied well enough.’ Cromwell had given orders that the Commissioners should not interfere with castles in Lord Butler’s possession, and to this Paulet objected, hinting that Butler’s head as well as Cromwell’s might easily be disposed of. His reading of Henry’s character was exactly the same as Wolsey’s. ‘I will,’ he said, ‘so work matters that the King shall be informed of every penny that he hath spent here; and when that great expense is once in his head, it shall never be forgotten; there is one good point. And then I will inform him how he hath given away to one man 700 marks by year, and then will the King swear “By God’s Body, have I spent so much money and have given away my land.” I will find the means to put the matter in the King’s head, after that wise as shall be to his displeasure; and yet shall he not know which way it came.’ Paulet gave Alen a most amusing description of the fashion in which Henry treated the minister to whom he gave such power. ‘The King beknaveth him twice a week and sometimes knocks him well about the pate; and yet when he hath been well pommelled about the head, and shaken up as it were a dog, he will come out into the great chamber shaking of his bush with as merry a countenance as though he might rule all the roast.’ The appointment of the High Commissioners was a ‘flym flawe to stop the imagination of the King and Council’ as to Cromwell’s object in promoting great grants to Lord Butler. The suggestion of course is that Cromwell was bribed by Butler, and the fact that Paulet was not punished shows that there were limitations to the minister’s power. Paulet said as much, or nearly as much, to Grey as to Alen and Aylmer, and Grey repeated it to the King with some softening of the words. Paulet was evidently hostile to the Butlers; so was Grey, and the fact that they had been on friendly terms was thought evidence of their conspiring in the Geraldine interest.218
Charges against Grey. Circuit of the Council in the South, 1539.
Aylmer and Alen were less than two months in London, but they left behind them a mass of accusations against Grey which in time brought forth fruit. Alen soon afterwards received the Great Seal, and during the last days of 1538 proceeded on a tour in the South with the general view of establishing the King’s supremacy, of improving the revenue, and of providing for the administration of justice. Archbishop Browne, Brabazon, and Aylmer accompanied the new Chancellor. At Carlow the party enjoyed Lord Butler’s Christmas hospitalities, and the old Earl treated them well at Kilkenny, where they spent New Year’s day, and where Browne preached to a large congregation. English translations of the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Articles, and Ten Commandments were published, and copies given to the Bishop and other dignitaries, who were ordered to promulgate them wherever they had jurisdiction. Next morning several felons were hanged, and certain concealed lands sequestrated to the King’s use; neither of which proceedings were calculated to increase his Majesty’s popularity. The councillors then went to Ross, which they found much decayed through the rivalry of Waterford and the disorders of the Kavanaghs. Here the Archbishop preached again. At Wexford there was another sermon, and the Kilkenny ceremonies were repeated, including the execution of divers malefactors. The Councillors were dissatisfied with Saintloo’s conduct as seneschal, and accused him of converting fines and forfeited recognizances to his own use. Badly armed