Prince of Wales, by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, by Jasper, Duke of Bedford, and by Henry VIII. before his accession to the Crown. In the meantime, the word justiciar, or Lord Justice, had come to mean a temporary substitute for the Deputy or Lieutenant. When a sovereign died, or when a viceroy suddenly left Ireland, it became the business of the Council to elect some one in his room. When giving leave to a governor to leave his post, the sovereign sometimes named the Lord Justice. Lord Capel, who was appointed in 1695, was the last chief governor who had the title of Deputy. Since the Revolution, the head of the Irish Government has always been a Lord Lieutenant, and during his absence one, or two, or three Lords Justices have been appointed by the Irish Privy Council.47
FOOTNOTES:
39. Stubbs’s Const. Hist., chap. xv.; Lynch’s Feudal Dignities, chaps. iii. and xi.
40. Sweetman’s Calendar of Documents, 1289; Lynch, supra.
41. The record is printed from the Black Book of Christ Church, in the Miscellany of the Irish Archæological Society.
42. Lynch, ut supra.
43. Lynch, ut supra; Lodge’s Register; Hardiman’s Statute of Kilkenny.
44. The names of those summoned to the Parliament of 1311 are printed by Lynch, chap. ii.; the names of those who attended in 1560 are in Tracts Relating to Ireland, vol. ii., Appendix II.
45. Cotton’s Fasti; Alemand’s Histoire Monastique; Lynch, chaps. iii. and vii.
46. Irish Statutes, 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
47. See the list of chief governors in Harris’s Ware; Borlase’s Reduction of Ireland; Lodge’s Patentee Officers; and Gilbert’s Viceroys.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE REIGN OF HENRY VII.
Accession of Henry VII., 1485.
Ireland was destined to give the victor of Bosworth much trouble, but his accession made little immediate difference to the Anglo-Irish community. Kildare continued to act as Chief Governor, and on the nomination of Jasper, Duke of Bedford, to the Lord Lieutenancy, he was formally appointed Deputy under him. His brother Thomas was allowed to retain the Great Seal. While thus leaving the administration of the island to the Yorkist Geraldines, Henry lost no time in restoring the rival House, which had suffered in defence of the Red Rose. Sir Thomas Butler was by Act of Parliament at once restored in blood, became seventh Earl of Ormonde, and was taken into high favour. The practical leadership of the Irish Butlers was, however, never held by him, and the disputes concerning it had no doubt great effect in consolidating Kildare’s power.
The Ormonde family. Sir Piers Butler.
John, sixth Earl of Ormonde, who never lived in Ireland, appointed as his deputy his cousin, Sir Edmund Butler. Earl John dying in Palestine, his brother Thomas succeeded him, and continued Sir Edmund in the custody of the Irish estates. Sir Edmund by will granted to his son Piers the same power as he had himself held, but it does not appear that this curious bequest was acknowledged either by the Earl of Ormonde or by the people of Kilkenny and Tipperary. Sir James Ormonde, as he is called, a bastard son of the fifth Earl, became the real chief of the Butlers, and is often called Earl by Irish writers; the rules of legitimate descent being then very lightly regarded in Ireland. Sir James received a regular commission from Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, as his deputy, supervisor, ‘and general and special attorney’ in Kilkenny. Strong in the confidence of the rightful Earl and in the estimation of the people, Sir James became Kildare’s chief opponent; who to weaken him espoused the cause of Sir Piers, to whom he gave his daughter Lady Margaret in marriage. ‘By that means and policy,’ says the ‘Book of Howth,’ ‘the Earl of Wormond (i.e. Sir James) was so occupied in his own country that he could not attend to do any damage to the Earl of Kildare nor any of his friends.’ And the chronicler Stanihurst, a Geraldine partisan, would have us believe that the successful career of Sir Piers was wholly due to the ‘singular wisdom’ of his wife. An eminent modern antiquary tells us that her fame still lives among the peasantry of Kilkenny, while the Red Earl is forgotten; that she is remembered as Magheen, or little Margaret, and that she is the traditional castle-builder of the district.48
Kildare suspected of plots. Lambert Simnel.
It has been generally stated that Henry, before he had been a year on the throne, heard that Kildare was plotting against him. From what happened later, it is likely that such a report would not have been without foundation. Perhaps there was some evidence of his complicity in Lord Lovel’s abortive insurrection, and it is highly probable that he was a party to the plot which the Duchess of Burgundy was hatching against the King of England.49 Except on the supposition that he had already been admitted to the conspirator’s confidence, it is hard to see how Kildare can have received Lambert Simnel and his promoter, a young and undistinguished priest, without hesitation or inquiry. There was no Lancastrian party in Dublin, and Henry’s politic exhibition of the real Earl of Warwick had no effect upon men who were determined to accept the counterfeit. In common with almost every temporal grandee, the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishops of Meath and Kildare espoused the pretender’s cause; but Octavian, Archbishop of Armagh, a Florentine, and well informed, remained firm, and was supported by the Bishop of Clogher. Henry afterwards asked the Pope to excommunicate the prelates who had favoured the pretender, and it is remarkable that he mentions the Archbishop of Armagh as one of them. Among the temporal peers, Lord Howth had the sense to see that Henry would be victorious, and he kept him well informed of all that went on in Ireland.50
Simnel is crowned King.
Simnel remained in Ireland, and published acts were done in his name as King until the arrival of Lincoln and Lovel, with Martin Swart, an experienced German leader, and 2,000 veterans of his nation, sent by Margaret of Burgundy. Lambert was crowned in Christ Church with a diadem borrowed for the occasion from a statue of the Virgin, and was shown to the people borne aloft on the shoulders of Darcy of Platten, the tallest man of his time—details which bespeak the poverty of the country. A coronation sermon was preached by the Bishop of Meath.51
Kildare ordered the citizens of Waterford to join him with all their forces, but the mayor, who was a Butler, filled the town with the vassals of the House of Ormonde, and the clans depending on it, and returned for answer that they held all as traitors who had taken any part in the mock coronation. Kildare hanged the poor groom who had brought this message, an act of barbarity with which the Archbishop was much offended, and then repeated his summons. The herald, who bore the Geraldine
