Henry VIII. is made King of Ireland.
Parliament met on Monday, June 13; but the Munster lords had not yet arrived, and the solemn mass was postponed until Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi. By that day all had assembled, and they rode in state to the place of meeting. Most of the peers wore their robes. On the morrow the Commons chose a Speaker in the person of Sir Thomas Cusack, a rising lawyer, who afterwards obtained the highest professional honours. He made a set speech at the bar of the Lords, praising the King for many things, but especially for having extirpated the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power. Ormonde then gave the substance of what had been said in Irish, to the ‘great contentation of those lords who could not understand English.’ At the sitting of the House of Lords on the following day, St. Leger proposed that Henry VIII. should be King of Ireland. A Bill to that effect was read a first time in English and Irish, and was received with acclamation. It was then and there read a second and a third time, and all the Lords subscribed it, lest they should thereafter be tempted to deny their consents. The Bill was then sent down to the Commons and read three times, and on the morrow, in presence of both Houses, St. Leger pronounced the royal consent—‘no less,’ he wrote, ‘to my comfort, than to be risen again from death to life, that I so poor a wretch should, by your excellent goodness, be put to that honour, that in my time your Majesty should most worthily have another Imperial Crown.’ This rapid action is in striking contrast to the long and acrimonious discussion excited by a change of the royal style in our own times.244
King and Pope. The royal style.
The question of style was one of considerable practical importance, for the friars had sedulously encouraged the popular notion that the real sovereignty rested in the Pope, and that the King of England was only a sort of viceroy. Alen had recommended the assumption of the royal title four years before; and both Staples and St. Leger had given the like advice. Parliamentary sanction had now been given to the change, and those who acknowledged English law could hardly dispute the principle involved. In the later struggles of Irish parties the contest between the Crown and the Tiara was constantly revived, and the ghost of the controversy is sometimes seen even in our own times. Less than two months before the meeting of St. Leger’s Parliament, Paul III. had written to prepare O’Neill for the arrival of a detachment of the Company of Jesus, and before its dissolution the first Jesuits had landed. But for the moment no opposition was visible. The proclamation of the new style was joyously celebrated by the citizens of Dublin. Salutes were fired. Bonfires were lit. Wine casks were broached in the streets; and there was much feasting in private houses. An amnesty was granted to criminals, except traitors, murderers, and ravishers; but prisoners for debt were not released, lest any creditor should be defrauded. There was some fear lest it should be supposed that the Irish Parliament had elected their King instead of merely declaring his just hereditary right; and many letters were exchanged on the subject. Finally the new style was settled as follows:—‘Henry VIII., by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England, and also of Ireland, in earth the Supreme Head.’ A new Great Seal had to be sent from England, since there was no competent engraver in Dublin. And thus, after the lapse of nearly four centuries, did Henry II.’s successor repudiate all obligations to Rome, and declare himself King of Ireland by right divine.245
Regulations for Munster.
The other Acts passed had no political significance, but followed pretty closely recent domestic legislation in England. After a session of little more than five weeks, Parliament was prorogued with the intention of convoking it again at Limerick. Before the two Houses dispersed, elaborate regulations, which were not embodied in an Act of Parliament, were drawn up for Munster, Thomond, and Connaught. There was no chance of enforcing these ordinances, but some of them are very good. Laymen and minors were disabled from holding ecclesiastical benefices; kernes were ordered to be treated as vagabonds, unless some lord would give bail for them; heads of families were declared responsible for damage done by younger members. Highway robbery and rape were pronounced capital; but by a strange anomaly robberies of above fourteen pence were made punishable by the loss of one ear for the first offence and of the other ear for the second, while death was fixed as the penalty for the third. A system of fines was promulgated for homicides, invasions, and spoils. The Irish jurisprudence was thus acknowledged, but only as a matter of fact, for the chiefs who indulged in open lawlessness were generally beyond the reach of the law. Saffron shirts were forbidden under penalties, and the permissible quantity of linen was carefully prescribed for each rank. A lord might have twenty cubits, his vassals eighteen, and his servants twelve. A kerne was allowed sixteen and an agricultural labourer ten. Stringent but useless limitations were imposed on coyne and livery, the fact being that great men had usually no other means of protecting their districts. Ormonde was appointed chief executor of these ordinances for Tipperary, Waterford, and Kilkenny, and Desmond for the other counties of Munster. Both were to command the assistance of the Archbishop of Cashel and to be entitled to one-third of all fines levied by them, two-thirds being payable to the King. The regulations for Thomond and Connaught were the same as for Munster, but they were probably even less regarded.246
FOOTNOTES:
232. For the intrigues with Scotland, see Brereton to Essex, May 17, 1540, and the note, S.P. vol. iii., and Layton to Essex, S.P. vol. v. p. 178; O’Neill’s letter to Henry was dated July 20; the King’s letter to O’Neill is dated Sept. 7—‘literas vestras unà cum munusculis grato animo accepimus.’ For O’Donnell’s submission, see Henry’s letter to him of Aug. 20, acknowledging his letters ‘per dilectum nobis Johannem Cappis, mercatorem Bristoliensem.’ St. Leger brought over O’Neill’s pardon.
233. In a letter to Cromwell of December 23, 1539, in Carew, William Wise, of Waterford, almost foretold the murder, which (according to Mr. Graves’s pedigree in the Irish Archæological Journal) took place on March 19 following. The pedigree says the murder was in Kerry, but other accounts, which are evidently correct, point to the neighbourhood of Fermoy or Mitchelstown. Council of Ireland to the King, April 4, 1540; Archdall’s Lodge; Russell. O’Daly (chap. xii.) admits that the murder was premeditated.
234. Ormonde to Brereton from Kilkenny, May 14; to the King, July 26, from Waterford. He had been to England and back between these dates. Desmond to Ormonde, July 8; Lord Deputy St. Leger to the King, Sept. 12, 1540.
235. P. Barnewall to Essex, May 19; Instructions to St. Leger and the others, and to St. Leger alone, S.P., Aug. 16 and 20. St. Leger landed Aug. 12, 1540.
236. Walter Cowley to St. Leger, March 15, 1541, ‘from the border of Cahir, MacArt’s country.’ St. Leger to the King, Sept. 12; Council of Ireland to the King, Sept. 22.
237. Council of Ireland to the King, Sept. 22, 1540; the King to the Lord Deputy and Council, Sept. 7 and 8; Lord Deputy and Council to the King, Nov. 13.
238. For the O’Tooles, see O’Donovan’s Book of Rights, and his notes to the Four Masters, 1180 and 1376; and Lord Deputy and Council to the King Nov. 14, 1540, with the notes. These people had suffered from the Kildare family as much as the Macgregors did from the Campbells. This may partly explain Tirlogh’s unwillingness to aid in restoring