with the king's enemies, as for furnishing them with horses, harness, and arms, and also supporting them against the king's subjects, be attainted of treason; and that whoever hath any of his goods or lands, and doth not discover them to the deputy within fourteen days, shall be attainted of felony. Unprepared, as it would seem, for so rigorous a measure, Desmond was arrested by order of the lord deputy, and, on the 5th day of February, was beheaded at Drogheda. At the same time with this ill-fated lord, the earl of Kildare and Edward PlunA. D. ket had also been attainted. But as soon as Worcester, having thus accomplished 1468. what is supposed to have been the main object of his mission, returned into England, the earl of Kildare was not only pardoned and restored in blood by parliament, but also appointed to the government of Ireland as deputy of the duke of Clarence. It was during this lord's administration that, in consequence of a doubt having arisen whether the act of 6 Richard II., " de Raptoribus," was of force in Ireland, it was declared, in a parliament held at Drogheda, that not only the statute in question, but all other English statutes made before that time, were binding in Ireland.* With a view to a better defence of the English territory, it was enacted, in a subsequent parliament, held at Naas, that "every merchant should bring twenty shilA. D. lings' worth of bows and arrows into Ireland, for every twenty pounds' worth of 1472. other goods he imported from England." It having been found, however, that in the present reduced state of the English colony, some measures of a more than ordinary cast were called for, in order to recruit and support the spirit of their small community, a fraturnity of arms, under the title of the brothers of St. George, was at this time constituted, consisting of thirteen persons, of the highest rank and most approved loyalty, selected from the four cantons of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth. To the captain of this military brotherhood, who was to be elected annually, on St. George's day, was assigned a guard of 120 archers on horseback, 40 other horsemen, and 40 pages; and of these 200 men, consisted the whole of the standing forces then maintained by the English government in Ireland.‡ Had the natives but known their own strength, or rather, had they been capable of that spirit of union and concert by which alone the strength of a people is rendered effective, the whole military force of the Pale could not have stood before them a single hour. But divided, as the native Irish were, into septs, each calling itself a "nation," and all more suspicious and jealous of each other than of the common foe, it was hardly possible that, among a people so circumstanced, a public spirit could arise, or that any prospect, however promising, of victory over their masters, could make them relinquish for it the old hereditary habit of discord among themselves. That their English rulers, though now so much weakened, did not the less confidently presume on their victim's patience under injustice, may be inferred from a law passed at this time, in a parliament held by William Sherwood, bishop of Meath, enacting that, "any Englishman, injured by a native not amenable to law, might reprise himself on the whole sept and nation." A. D. 1475. A. D. The adherence of the Ormond family to the fortunes of Henry VI. had drawn down upon John, the sixth earl, the penalty of attainder, and consigned, during the early part of this reign, all the other members of that noble house to obscurity and dis1476. grace. By a statute, however, made in the sixteenth year of Edward IV., the act of attainder against John, earl of Ormond, was repealed, and that lord restored to his "lands, name, and dignity, as by title of his ancestors." So successful was he, too, in recommending himself to Edward, by his knowledge of languages and other courtly accomplishments, that the king pronounced him to be the "goodliest knight he had ever beheld, and the finest gentleman in Europe;" adding that, "if good breeding, nurture, and liberal qualities were lost in the world, they might all be found in John, earl of Ormond."{ Encouraged by the favour thus shown to the head of their house, the faction of the * See sir John Maynard's Answer to a Book," &c.-Hibernic. p. 96. † Cox. Davies, who adds, "And as they were natives of the kingdom, so the kingdom itself did pay their, wages, without expecting any treasure from England." § Carte's Ormond, Introduct. This earl, who was unmarried, and left no issue, undertook, from pious motives, a journey to Jerusalem, and died in the Holy Land. should hold no correspondence with the Irish;" while, at the same time his own family was affording examples of the fated and natural tendency of the two races to come to- A. D. gether, in the marriage of his sister to the head of the great northern sept of the 1480. O'Neill's.* It was, indeed, in the same parliament that forbade so peremptorily all communication with the Irish, that the special act was passed for the naturalization of Con O'Neill, on the occasion of his marriage with one of the lord deputy's sisters.† On the death of the ill-fated duke of Clarence, the office of lieutenant of Ireland was conferred by Edward upon his second son, Richard, duke of York; and it was as deputy of this infant prince that the earl of Kildare now held the reigns of the govern- 1478 ment. To so low an ebb, however, was the Irish revenue at this time reduced, that a to force of 80 archers on horseback, and 40 of another description of horsemen, called 1483. "spears," constituted the whole of the military establishment that could be afforded for that realm's defence and lest the sum even of 600l., annually, required for the maintenance of this small troop, might prove too onerous to the country, it was provided that, should Ireland be unable to pay it, the sum was to be sent thither from England.‡ A. D. CHAPTER XLIII. EDWARD V. AND RICHARD 111. The Geraldines still in authority.-Parliaments held at Dublin.-Enactment of one of these Parliaments.-Reign of Richard III. terminated by the battle of Bosworth. DURING the normal reign of the fifth Edward, and the short usurpation of Richard III., the condition of Ireland remained unimproved and unchanged. Throughout this A. D. brief and bloody period, the power of the Pale was almost entirely in the hands of 1483. the Geraldines, the earl of Kildare performing the functions of lord deputy, while his brother, Sir Thomas of Laccagh, was lord chancellor of the kingdom. In a parliament held at Dublin, by the earl of Kildare, an act was passed which, for its unusually peaceful purport, may deserve to be remembered. It was enacted, "that the mayor and bailiffs of Waterford might go in pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella in Spain, leaving sufficient deputies to govern that city in their absence." By another act of this parliament, the corporation and men of the town of Ross were authorized to "re- 1485. prize themselves against robbers." Such are the only incidents worthy of any notice that occur in our scanty records of this reign, which was brought to a close, by the battle of Bosworth, on the 22d of August, 1485. A. D. * The sept, or nation, of the O'Neills of Ulster, was one of the five bloods, or lineages, of the Irish, who were by special grace enfranchized, and enabled to share in the benefits of English law. See the case cited by Davies, where the plaintiff pleads, "quod ipse est de quinque sanguinibus." The four other "bloods" thus privileged, were the O'Melaghlins of Meath, the O'Connors of Connaught, the O'Brians of Thomond, and the Mac Moroughs of Leinster. From the above instance, however, of Kildare's son-in-law, it would appear that this general grant of naturalization was not always deemed sufficient. †The eldest daughter of the late earl, Elenor, was married to Henry Mac Owen O'Neill, chief of his name, by whom she was mother of Con (More) O'Neill, who married her niece, daughter to Gerald, eighth earl of Kildare.-Lodge. 1 Cox. In other words," says sir William Betham, "might rob the innocent to indemnify themselves for having been previously plundered."-See Origin and History of the Early Parliaments of Ireland—the latest and not least valuable of this indefatigable antiquarian's labours. CHAPTER XLIV. HENRY VII. Policy of Henry respecting his claims to the crown.-Strength of the York party in Ireland. -Kildare suspected by the king.-Henry's cruelty towards the young earl of Warwick.— This conduct the source of all the subsequent plots.-Arrival of Simnel in Dublin.—General adoption of his cause in Ireland-is proclaimed king.-Movement in his favour by the English lords, Lincoln and Lovell-their arrival in Dublin with a body of German auxili. aries. Henry endeavours to remove the delusion-is successful in England, but fails in Ireland. Invasion of England by the forces of the Pale-are entirely defeated by the king's army at Stoke.-Simnel made prisoner, and transferred to the royal kitchen. The king rewards the loyalty of Waterford-consents to pardon Kildare and the citizens of Dublin.-Opportunity lost of curbing the power of the Anglo Irish lords.-Proceedings of Edgecomb's commission.-Henry summons the great lords of the Pale to Greenwich.Murder of the ninth earl of Desmond.—Wars of his successor with the Irish.-Appearance of another impostor, Perkin Warbeck-pretends to be Richard, duke of York.-The Duchess of Burgundy the contriver of this plot.-The king of France invites Warbeck to his court-from thence he proceeds to Flanders-is received by the Duchess as her nephew.The earl of Kildare in disgrace.-Sir Edward Poynings made lord deputy.-Expedition of Poynings into Ulster.-Kildare suspected of conspiring with the Irish enemy.-Poynings summons a Parliament-memorable statute which bears his name.-Other enactments of this Parliament.-Warbeck repairs to the court of Scotland-is received with royal honours -marries the daughter of the earl of Huntley.-Visit of O'Donnell to the Scottish court.The earl of Kildare arrested, and sent prisoner to England-succeeds in refuting the charges against him-is made lord lieutenant.-Warbeck again tries his fortune in Ire. land-is joined by the earl of Desmond.-Their unsuccessful expedition against Waterford.-Warbeck flies to Cornwall-is executed for treason at Tyburn.-Warfare among the Irish.-Military success of Kildare.-Confederacy among the great chiefs.-Battle of Knoc. tuadh.-Signal defeat of the Irish. One of the most serious of the many evils attending that fierce hereditary feud, so long maintained between the two families from which England was, in those times, furnished with rulers, was, that it rendered each successive monarch little more than the crowned chief of a particular faction,-ruling as the champion rather of a portion of his people, than as the acknowledged and paternal sovereign of all. On the accession, however, of Henry VII., the prospects of the country were, in this respect, much improved; that prince having been furnished by a train of circumstances, with so many and such plausible titles to the crown, as enabled him to trust to their collective weight without risking the enforcement of them in detail, or arousing unnecessarily the spirit of party, by putting forth claims whose strength and safety lay in their silence. Thus, his marriage with a princess of the house of York, if assumed as the foundation of his right to the crown, would have been viewed with jealousy by his own Lancastrian followers; while, on the other hand, the pretensions founded by him upon his descent from John of Gaunt would have offended the proud, and now mortified, Yorkists; and the only remaining ground left, that of the right of conquest, could not but awaken, he knew, the unwelcome recollection, that it was over Englishmen the boasted conquest had been obtained. With a forbearance, therefore, in which coolness of temper had at least as much share as good sense, he refrained from advancing, more than was absolutely necessary, any distinct claim to the succession; and leaving his rights, such as they were, to their own silent influence, was content, in the entail of the crown, with the vague de This ground of his claim was just intimated by him, in his first speech to the commons, but, almost in the same breath, skilfully softened away.-See Lingard, chap. 26. claration that "the inheritance of the crown should rest, remain, and abide in the king." This moderate policy may, with the less hesitation, he ascribed to cautious and calculating motives, inasmuch as the enmity of the king to the Yorkists continued to be as strong and revengeful as ever. That he was capable, however, of sacrificing this feeling to views of prudence and expediency, appears sufficiently from his conduct towards Ireland. For though on his accession, he found, in that kingdom, all the great offices filled by partisans of the house of York, he yet not only confirmed all these Yorkists in their several stations, but, by a stretch of confidence and delicacy of which he afterwards felt the imprudence, forbore from adding any of the Lancastrian party to the council, lest he might be supposed to distrust the loyalty of the Irish government, or regard any of its members with insulting suspicion or fear.* While Henry, thus shaping his course to the state of affairs in Ireland, took pains to conciliate the favour of the party then most powerful, neither was he forgetful A. D. of the few who had always been staunch to his family's cause; and among these 1485. stood pre-eminent the noble family of Ormond. Thomas Butler, the seventh earl, declared a traitor in the first year of Edward IV., was now, by an act of the Irish parliament, restored to "honour and estate," and became distinguished for public services, both military and diplomatic.t But the growing strength of the York faction in Ireland began now seriously to arrest the monarch's attention. The popular government of the duke of York was still fondly remembered in that country, and the cause of the family to which their favourite prince belonged had been espoused with the utmost ardour by the great bulk of the English settlers. The implied sanction, therefore, lately given to the ascendency of their party by the king, was hailed at the time with a warmth of joy and gratitude, which but fostered, as it proved, the seeds of future presumption and excess. Having already had reason to suspect that Kildare was planning some mischief, the king wrote to him, to command his presence immediately in England, assigning A. D. as a pretext for this urgency, that he wished to advise with him concerning the .1486. peace of his Irish realm. But the earl, suspecting, doubtless, the real intent of this order, submitted the case to the parliament then assembled in Dublin, and procured letters to the king from the spiritual and temporal peers, representing that affairs requiring the lord deputy's presence were about to be discussed in parliament, and praying that, for a short time, he might be excused from obeying the royal command. Among the names of the clergy who subscribed these letters, is found that of Octavian de Palatio, archbishop of Armagh; a prelate whose subsequent conduct removes the suspicion of his having been actuated in this step by party feelings. The secular subscribers to the letters were Robert Preston, viscount Gormanstown, and the six most ancient of our barons, Slane, Delvin, Killeen, Howth, Trimleston, and Dunsany.‡ It might not unreasonably have been expected by Henry, that the favourable circumstances under which he had commenced his reign, and more especially the reconcilement of the two rival houses, which seemed to have been accomplished by his marriage, would assure to him an easy and uncontested career. But the events and prospects now gradually unfolding themselves must have disabused him of any such flattering hope; and the chief source of much of the odium now gathering round him, as well as of those plots by which his throne was afterwards threatened, may be found in the impression produced, at the outset of his reign, by the odious harshness of his conduct towards the young Edward Plantagenet, son of the late duke of Clarence. This prince, whom Edward IV. had created earl of Warwick,-the title borne by his grandfather, had been treated at first, by Richard III., as heir apparent to the crown; but afterwards, fearing to find in him a rival, he kept the young prince a close prisoner in the castle of Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire. This youth, at the time of Henry's accession, had just reached his fifteenth year; and so selfishly blind was the new monarch to every other consideration but that of seizing the prize which victory had allotted to him, that, although the contingency of this youth's right to the crown was still so remote as not to be calculated on, while any of the posterity of Edward IV. remained alive, he had * Ware's Annals. ↑ History of the Life of Ormond." The attainder of I Edward IV. being reversed, Thomas, earl of Ormonde took possession of all the estate which his eldest brother had enjoyed in England; and was made by Henry VII. one of the privy council of England. He was one of the richest subjects in the king's dominions, having. after his brother James's death, found in his house, at the Black Friars in London, about 40,000l. sterling in money, besides plate, all which he carried over with him into Ireland.-Carte, Introduct. Ware's Annals. him removed from his prison in Yorkshire to the Tower, there to pine in hopeless captivity, and with the fate of his murdered cousins for ever before his eyes. While thus the story of this young prince was so much calculated to awaken pity for himself, and indignation against his oppressor, the great importance attached by Henry to his safe custody could not but render him an object of interest and speculation to the disaffected. What the king regarded with fear, the rebel would as naturally look to with hope; nor is it to be wondered at, that to persons in search of some tolerable frame-work for a conspiracy, a device connected with this youth's fate should, for want of a better, have suggested itself. The birth of a son, at this time, to the king, by diminishing the chance of a change in the succession, but furnished the conspirators with a new motive for activity; and, in order to profit by the strong feeling in favour of the Yorkists, that prevailed in Ireland, Dublin was the place selected for the opening of this strange plot. Early in the year 1486, there landed in that city a priest of Oxford, named Richard Simons, attended by his ward, Lambert Simnel, a boy of about eleven years of age, the son of an Oxford tradesman. This youth he presented to the lord deputy, and the other lords of the council, as Edward earl of Warwick, son to George duke of Clarence. To attempt to personate a living prince, so near at hand as to be easily confronted with the impostor, was a contrivance, it must be owned, as daring and difficult as it was clumsy. Nothing appears, however, to have been wanting, that careful rehearsal and consummate acting could accomplish, to render the scheme consistent and plausible. The youth himself, who, we are told, was handsome and of noble demeanour, well became the lofty station which he assumed; and, having been tutored well in his story, gave such an account of his past adventures, as coincided with all that his hearers had known or learned on the subject themselves. The scheme was instantly and completely successful. The earl of Kildare, far less from credulity, it is clear, than from the bias of party spirit, gave in at once, and without any reserve, to the fraud; and his example was immediately followed by almost the whole of the people of the Pale, who, admitting at once, without farther inquiry, the young pretender's title, proclaimed him by the style of Edward VI., king of England and France, and lord of Ireland. Amidst this general defection, the citizens of Waterford remained still firm in their allegiance to Henry; the family of the Butlers, pledged hereditarily to the house of York, continued likewise faithful; while almost the only ecclesiastics who refused to bow before the impostor, were the foreign archbishop of Armagh, Octavian de Palatio, and the bishops of Cashel, Tuam, Clogher, and Ossory. Though, ostensibly, Simons the priest was the only person engaged in the scheme of palming Simnel on the Irish as Warwick, it seems generally to be supposed that this plot, as well as all others during this reign, had originated at the court of the duchess of Burgundy, third sister of Edward IV.,-"the chief end of whose life," we are told," was to see the majesty royal of England once more replaced in her house." No sooner was it known in England that the Irish had declared in favour of the pretended Warwick, than the nephew of this princess, the earl of Lincoln, who was then in attendance on Henry, and had received marks of his confidence, took suddenly his departure, and repaired to the court of his aunt, whither lord Lovell also had lately betaken himself, after a short and feeble attempt at insurrection. The object of this suspicious movement did not long remain a mystery. It appeared that Lincoln had gone to consult with the duchess of Burgundy and lord Lovell as to the most prompt and efficient mode of assisting the cause of the young pretender;** and the fruit of their counsels was seen in the landing of a force of 2000 German troops at Dublin, under the command of a veteran officer, Martin Swartz, and accompanied by the two English earls, Lincoln and Lovell.tt Mean while, with the hope of correcting the dangerous impression already produced by the impostor, the king gave orders that the real earl of Warwick should be conducted, in Remarking that the king had been "a little improvident in the matter of Ireland," lord Bacon adds. "since he knew the strong bent of that country towards the house of York, and that it was a ticklish and unsettled state, more easy to receive distempers and mutations than England was." † Lingard. According to some authorities, fifteen years of age. "He was," says Bacon, "a comely youth and well favoured, not without some extraordinary dignity and grace of aspect." In a letter written by this prelate to Pope Innocent VIII., he thus describes the effects of the fraud: "The clergy and secular are all distracted at this present with a king and no king.-some saying he is the son of Edward earl of Warwick, others saying he is an impostor. But our brother of Canterbury hath satisfied me of the truth." Bacon. This nobleman, who was the nephew of Richard III, had been declared, by that monarch, heir apparent to the crown. **Hall's Chronicle. tt Bacon. Ware. Hall. |