to Kilmallock, ‘where, I think, none of your Grace’s Deputies came this hundred years before,’ and treated him hospitably, openly declaring that he was ready if the Deputy wished it to go to London to see the King. O’Brien came peacefully to Limerick, complaining chiefly that he was not allowed to bridge the Shannon nor to exercise jurisdiction over friendly tribes on the left bank. St. Leger promised him perpetual war unless he would yield on both points, believing that he could do little harm without the concurrence of Desmond, of the Clanricarde Burkes, or of Donogh O’Brien. He was given till Shrovetide to consult his friends, and at last decided to keep quiet and to send agents to watch over his interests in Parliament. A pardon was issued under the Great Seal of Ireland, and towards the end of the year O’Brien spontaneously addressed a very dutiful letter to the King, begging personal as well as official forgiveness for his many sins. ‘My mind,’ he said, ‘is never satisfied till I have made the same submission to your Grace’s own person, whom I most desire to see above all creatures on earth living, now in mine old days; which sight I doubt not but shall prolong my life.’242
MacWilliam Burke and MacGillapatrick.
MacWilliam Burke of Clanricarde and MacGillapatrick professed anxiety for the royal favour, and accompanied St. Leger on his tour. He prescribed an earldom for the former, a barony for the latter, and Parliament-robes and other fine clothes for both; in the belief that titles and little acts of civility would weigh more with these rude men than a display of force. He himself had given MacWilliam a silver-gilt cup, and in Limerick Desmond had from vanity or policy worn ‘gown, jacket, doublet, hose, shirts, caps, and a velvet riding coat,’ from the Lord Deputy’s wardrobe. It was very important to conciliate MacWilliam, who could always prevent a junction of the O’Briens and O’Donnells. MacGillapatrick soon afterwards covenanted with the King to live civilly, to act loyally, and to hold his lands of the Crown by knight-service. MacWilliam wrote a letter to Henry confessing and lamenting that his family had degenerated, and belied their English blood, ‘which have been brought to Irish and disobedient rule by reason of marriage and nurseing with those Irish, sometime rebels, near adjoining to me.’ He placed himself and all his possessions unreservedly in the King’s hands, but seems to have let it be known that he would like to be an Earl. Henry refused this unless the repentant Norman would come to Court, but he offered a barony or viscounty without any condition.243
Parliament of 1541.
Early in 1541 St. Leger received authority to summon a Parliament. The composition of the House of Commons is uncertain, for no list of members is extant between 1382 and 1559. In the former of those years eighteen counties or districts and eleven towns were represented. In the latter, ten counties and twenty-eight cities and boroughs returned two members each. Through the action of the royal prerogative the number was progressively increased until the 300 of the eighteenth century was reached. In St. Leger’s time the Upper House was the more important of the two, and was attended by four archbishops, nineteen bishops, and twenty temporal peers, of whom Desmond was one. Among the temporal peers was Rawson, late prior of Kilmainham and chief of the Irish Hospitallers, who had just been created Viscount Clontarf. There were four new Barons—Edmund Butler Lord Dunboyne, MacGillapatrick Lord Upper Ossory, Oliver Plunkett Lord Louth, and William Bermingham Lord Carbery. Richard le Poer had been created Baron of Curraghmore six years before. Besides the peers there were present in Dublin Donough O’Brien, MacWilliam Burke, O’Reilly, Cahir MacArt Kavanagh, Phelim Roe O’Neill of Clandeboye, and some of the O’Mores. O’Brien sent agents or deputies. These and other important persons were present at the passing of the Bill which made Henry King of Ireland; but they had no votes and were not considered as members of Parliament.
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.
