The royal supremacy. The Munster Bishops.
From Wexford Alen and his companions went to Waterford, where Browne preached to a great audience, and where the new formularies were again published. The usual hangings followed. Four felons suffered, ‘accompanied with another thief, a friar, whom, among the residue, we commanded to be hanged in his habit, and so to remain upon the gallows, for a mirror to all other his brethren to live truly.’ The assizes or sessions were attended only by the inhabitants of Lord Power’s portion of the county of Waterford. The other and larger division of the shire belonged to Gerald MacShane of Decies, who pretended to hold of the Desmonds, and altogether ignored his tenure of the royal honour of Dungarvan. The Lord of Decies, James Fitzjohn of Desmond, the White Knight, and Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir were summoned with several others. Butler came to Clonmel and made a favourable impression, but the Geraldines sent only ‘frivolous, false, feigned excuses, not consonant to their allegiance.’ Browne preached again at Clonmel in the presence of two archbishops and eight bishops, all of whom afterwards, before the whole congregation, took the oath of supremacy, and swore to maintain the succession as established by law.220
Taxation of southern counties.
After much pressing, the inhabitants of Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary consented to pay a yearly subsidy to the King; 100 marks for Wexford, and 50l. for each of the other three. This source of revenue was quite new, and the Council were very proud of inventing it; but they confessed to doubts as to its substantial value, especially in Waterford, where Sir Gerald MacShane had power to pay or to withhold. From Clonmel the councillors returned to Dublin by Kilkenny, where they hanged one man more and levied some further fines. They had been absent from the capital five weeks.221
Grey in Ulster. The Scots, 1539.
About the time that the Chancellor and his companions were turning homewards, Grey undertook another expedition against O’Neill. Again the ostensible object was to catch young Gerald of Kildare, and in this the Lord Deputy failed. But he very nearly caught O’Neill himself, actually carried off his ‘housewife,’ and ravaged much of his country. O’Donnell was present, or at least some of his people, for the horse which his standard-bearer rode was taken. James Fitzjohn of Desmond was in alliance with the two great northern chiefs to protect the ‘naughty boy,’ as Alen called Gerald, and if possible to force the King to restore him. The bastard Geraldines of the Pale were ready to help their natural leader, who grew more dangerous as he grew older. The Antrim Scots were always available for service against the English Government, and Brabazon wished to cripple them by a naval expedition. O’Neill and O’Donnell now sent Roderick O’Donnell, Bishop of Derry, to Scotland for 6,000 Redshanks. In the meantime they professed themselves ready to treat with Grey, and promised to bring young Gerald to meet him on the last day of April at Carrick Bradagh, near Dundalk. They never came, and Grey penetrated to Armagh in spite of bad weather and foul ways. O’Neill still refused to show himself or to give any hostage, but he professed peaceable intentions. The weather made it impossible to advance further, and Aylmer was sent to Blackwater, where he succeeded in making a truce. Again, Grey says that he had intended to seize his nephew by fair means or foul. ‘If they had kept pointment with me having young Gerald with them, howsoever the thing had chanced by the oath that I have made unto your Grace, they should have left the young Gerald behind them quick or dead. If it were the pleasure of God I would that I might once have a sight of him whom as yet I never saw with my eyes.’222
The O’Tooles.
The O’Tooles had never been punished for their victory over Kelway, and Grey, who had for the moment no worse enemy than a gouty foot, resolved to chastise them. They proposed to parley near Ballymore Eustace, but did not come. Though in great pain, Grey rode to Powerscourt in a day, entered the mountains and penetrated to Glenmalure, cutting the woods on both sides as he went. ‘Before my coming thither,’ he said, ‘I think there never was Deputy with carts there.’ He had some skirmishing with the natives, but took no man of importance, and returned to Maynooth without having improved his gout.223
Intrigues concerning Gerald of Kildare.
A confederacy had at this time been formed in favour of young Gerald. His own claims might not have been enough, in spite of Lady Eleanor O’Donnell’s efforts, but Henry’s ecclesiastical policy was beginning to bear its natural fruit. Priests passed from chief to chief, and communications with Rome were frequent. The Irish said all Englishmen were heretics, and the King the ‘most heretic and worst man in the world,’ in which perhaps they were not far wrong. They considered Henry a disobedient Papal vassal, and a mere usurper in Ireland. ‘When Dr. Nangle, my suffragan,’ says Archbishop Browne, ‘showed the King’s broad seal for justifying of his authority, MacWilliam little esteemed it, but threw it away and vilipended the same.’ The plan was that O’Toole, to whom Gerald promised to restore Powerscourt, should harass the Pale from the south, while James Fitzjohn of Desmond, with some Scotch mercenaries, attacked it from the west and O’Neill from the north. If Tara could be reached O’Neill might be proclaimed King of Ireland, and Gerald restored to his own in Kildare. Besides her own friends, Lady Eleanor commanded the services of a Bristol captain named Kate, or Cappys, who spoke Irish fluently and owned his own ship. John Lynch, a Galway merchant, met him at Assaroe, on the Donegal coast, and warned some of the confederates that Grey would be too strong for them, and that he was active enough to surprise them when they thought he was amusing himself. But Delahide, Leverous, and others, answered that they had perfect intelligence, that Grey could not ride twenty miles in the Pale without their knowledge, that his army consisted chiefly of churls and ploughmen, of which 300 might easily be vanquished by 100, and that he had no good officers under him. These are the arguments with which the foes of order in Ireland have always deluded their adherents, and sometimes themselves.224
Catholic movement.
Wherever Lynch went he found the priests preaching daily ‘that every man ought for the salvation of his soul fight and make war against our sovereign lord the King’s Majesty and his true subjects; and if any of them which so shall fight against his said Majesty or his subjects, die in the quarrel, his soul that so shall be dead shall go to heaven as the soul of St. Peter, Paul, and others, which suffered death and martyrdom for God’s sake.’ ‘And forasmuch,’ Lynch adds, ‘as I did traverse somewhat of such words, I was cast out of church and from their masses during a certain time of days for an heretic; and I was greatly afraid.’ The result of all this preaching was an invasion of the Pale in the month of August. Lord Butler’s policy had kept the O’Briens quiet, and nothing was done on that side. But O’Donnell and O’Neill entered Meath with the greatest army, as some thought, that had ever been seen in Ireland. There was a large contingent of Scots, both from the mainland and the islands, and most of the Northern chiefs added their quotas to the host. O’Neill of Clandeboye, O’Rourke, Maguire, MacQuillin, O’Cahan, Magennis, and MacDermot are among those mentioned. Tara was reached, but no restoration of the ancient kingdom followed. Much damage was done to the modern kingdom, including the burning of Ardee and of Navan, which was the best market town in the county. The invaders set fire to the standing corn, carried off every portable article of value, and, sweeping all the cattle before them, turned in high spirits northwards. They had met with no enemy, and had probably attained their object of providing funds for a general rising, which was fixed for September 1, and which James of Desmond was expected to join.225