Ireland under the Tudors. Volume 3 (of 3). Bagwell Richard

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but in many other things.’

      ‘The soldiers,’ said Sir William Stanley, ‘are so ill chosen in England that few are able or willing to do any service, but run away with our furniture, and when they come into England there is no punishment used to them, by means whereof we can hardly keep any.’

      Meantime there were loud complaints of abuses in purveyance for the Viceregal household, and the Irish Council could think of no better plan than to swear the purveyors, and cut off their ears in case of perjury. Wallop reported that bribes were openly taken in official circles; that was the usual course, though he had never given or taken any himself.69

Kildare in charge of the Pale

      When Grey went to Munster he left Kildare to act as general in the Pale. With the whole force of the country, and with 1,400 men in the Queen’s pay, including garrisons, he undertook to defend Dublin to the south, and to do some service against the rebels. Six hundred men were on the Ulster frontier, and these also were to be at his disposal in case of necessity. He and his son-in-law, the Baron of Delvin, were accused of conspiring to turn the war to their own advantage, by promising everything and doing nothing. Should the Pope’s title prevail, they would be all-powerful; should the Queen be victorious they would at least make money out of the business. It was arranged that Kildare should have 600 men paid by the country in addition to the Queen’s troops. He preferred to take the money, and to raise 400 kernes himself; ‘but I think,’ said Wallop, ‘he will put all that in his purse and three parts of his entertainment of his horsemen, and fifty shillings a day for his diet. In this town he lieth for the most part, and spendeth not five pounds a week, keeping his chamber with a board not anyways an ell long.’ A civilian named Eustace, ‘properly learned, but a papist in the highest degree,’ was accused of fomenting treason among the nominally loyal, and Gerard, by remaining ‘a secret ghostly father to him for a time,’ made him fear for his own neck, and induced him to give information against many persons in the Pale. Maltby took care to remind the Irish Government that both Kildare and Ormonde had given security for John and Ulick Burke, and that Kildare was the same man that he had always been and always would be. It was plain that those to whom the conduct of the war was entrusted did not care to end it, and that only English officers and soldiers could really be depended on. An occasional raid into the Wicklow mountains did not advance matters much, and Feagh MacHugh was able to burn Rathcoole, a prosperous village ten miles from Dublin, and to make the very suburbs tremble for their own safety. Kildare made light of the burning of Rathcoole, and threw the blame on inferior officers; but this was not the view taken by the Council generally.70

Kildare is strongly suspected

      When Grey returned to Dublin he found the whole official circle bent upon disgracing Kildare, and after some days’ consideration he summoned the general body of nobles to meet the Council, ostensibly for the discussion of military dispositions. Delvin saw that he was suspected, and vehemently demanded an enquiry, putting in a written declaration in answer to rumoured accusations. The full Council, including Kildare, found this statement inconsistent with known facts, and committed him to the Castle. Then Gerard, who had conducted the private investigation, rashly disclosed his whole case, and openly accused the Earl of complicity with the treason of Baltinglas. Wallop, who believed that no good thing could come out of Galilee, observed that the Chancellor ‘would needs have the attorney and serjeant by, who are of this country birth, and so were many councillors then present, by means of which it is now in every man’s mouth what the Earl is to be charged with.’

      The Vice-Treasurer adds that his lands were worth 3,000l. a year, but that he had taken good care to return them to England as worth only 1,500l., that the only road towards good government lay through severity, and that unless traitors were made to pay both in person and lands, Ireland would always be what it long had been, – ‘the sink of the treasure of England.’ Waterhouse, whose office it was to look after unconsidered trifles of revenue, thought the original cause of war was Kildare’s military commission, and that treason should be made to pay its own expenses. ‘I will hear your honour’s opinion,’ he wrote to Walsingham, ‘whether her Majesty will be content to have her great charges answered out of the livings of the conspirators, and to use a sharp and a severe course without respect of any man’s greatness, wheresoever law will catch hold, or whether all faults must be lapped up in lenity with pardons, protections, and fair semblance, as in times past; if severity, then is there hope enough of good reformation; if mildness, then discharge the army and officers, and leave this nation to themselves, for sure the mean will do no good. We must embrace one of these extremities.’71

Kildare and Delvin prisoners in England

      Grey could not deny that appearances were strong against the Earl, and he ordered his arrest, giving full credit for their exertions to Gerard and Loftus. He believed that ‘greediness of pay and arrogant zeal to Popish government’ were the stumbling-blocks of great personages in Ireland, and that Delvin certainly was ‘a wicked creature who had cut the poor Earl’s throat.’ As if to add to the suspicion, Kildare’s son and heir ran off to the O’Connors, and they refused to let him go when Grey sent for him. At last, fearing the construction that might be put upon this, they handed him over to Ormonde, and he was shut up in the Castle with his father and Lord Delvin. All three were sent over to England, Secretary Fenton carrying the despatches, and Gerard going with him to tell his own story.72

The Munster rebellion drags on

      The capture of Smerwick did not put down the Munster rebellion; but Ormonde, or some of those about him, contemptuously reported that Desmond, his brother, and Baltinglas had ‘but a company of rascals and four Spaniards, and a drum to make men believe that they had a great number of the strangers.’ Both Youghal and Ross thought themselves in danger, and Wallop reported that communications between the capital and Limerick were only kept up by ‘simple fellows that pass afoot in nature of beggars, in wages not accustomed.’ Grey and Ormonde having turned their backs, Desmond appeared again near Dingle, and Bingham felt that there might be an attack at any moment. Half of Captain Zouch’s men were dead and buried, the survivors being too ill to work or fight. Captain Case’s company were little better, and they would have made no resistance without Bingham and his sailors, who worked with a will and raised a breastwork tenable by 20 men against 2,000 kernes and gallowglasses. The men were put on short allowance, and having thus made the provisions last thirteen days longer than they would otherwise have done, Bingham was compelled to return to England. His crew were so reduced by spare diet that they were unable to work the ship up Channel, and had to run into Bristol. He left Ireland, to quote a correspondent of Walsingham, ‘in as great confusion as the Tower of Babylon was a building.’ There were more soldiers in Munster than had been since the first conquest, and war material was abundant. But no two officers agreed with each other personally, or were agreed upon the policy to be pursued. Ormonde was in Dublin, looking after his own interests, and leaving his lieutenants to shift for themselves. Sir Warham St. Leger, Chief Commissioner at Cork, claimed superiority over Sir George Bourchier at Kilmallock, while the latter acted as a captain of free lances and granted protections to whom he pleased. Sir William Morgan at Youghal would give way to neither, and there seemed no escape from the difficulty but once more to appoint an English President, ‘upright, valiant, severe, and wise.’ In the meantime the rebellion was as strong as ever, and what the rebels spared the soldiers ravaged. In Connaught the young Burkes daily razed houses and fences, northern Leinster lay waste, in Munster nothing was left standing save towns and cities, and Ulster was ready to break out on the smallest provocation.73

Official attack upon Ormonde

      The English officials all maintained that Ormonde had shown himself unfit to conduct the war. One writer estimates his emoluments at 215l. a month, and another at 3,677l. a year, and the first result of a peace would be to deprive him of these comfortable subsidies. He was mixed up with Irish families and Irish lawsuits, and could not have a single eye to the public service. He owed the Queen over 3,000l. in rents, and

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