and accused him of conspiring with Walter Cowley to defame him; but this the Chancellor positively denied. The Lord Deputy begged that he might not be wearied with interrogatories, but called before the Council, and confronted with his accusers. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘let me be rid of this hell, wherein I have remained six years, and that some other may serve his Majesty as long as I have done, and I to serve him elsewhere, where he shall command me. Though the same were in Turkey, I will not refuse it.’278
St. Leger exonerated from blame. Alen and Cowley imprisoned.
The English Government came to the conclusion that St. Leger deserved no blame. Alen could not be quite acquitted of factious conduct; but he was a faithful servant, and hardly to be spared from Ireland, which had the quality of transmuting wisdom into foolishness and honesty into self-seeking. He suffered a short imprisonment in the Tower, and had to surrender the Great Seal, which, after being refused by two other lawyers, was given to Sir Richard Rede. But his property was restored to him immediately after Edward’s accession; he became Lord Chancellor again, and received the constableship of Maynooth, and many other favours. In 1550 he seems still to have been grumbling against St. Leger, who could then afford to speak of him as his old friend. Walter Cowley, the Irish Solicitor-General, was also sent to the Tower. It appears that one William Cantwell held a lease for life of three farms in Kilkenny, and that others had seized them while he was learning English at Oxford. There may have been a question of title, for it was not uncommon in Henry VIII.’s time to grant the same property to several people at once. Believing that he had been kept from his own by Ormonde, St. Leger espoused Cantwell’s cause; and it was to get the Earl out of the way that Cantwell wrote the Gowran letter, and another found at Ross. Cowley, who was more or less under Alen’s influence, declared in the Tower that his report against St. Leger had been revised by the Chancellor; but this was solemnly denied. ‘I was,’ said Alen, ‘never of counsel with article of it. God is my Judge, I would be ashamed to be named to be privy to the penning of so lewd a book;’ and years afterwards he told Paget that Cowley had confessed the truth of this disclaimer. Perhaps he spoke in fear of the rack; in any case, the Privy Council or the King decided that he was a liar, and he was certainly a plotter like his father before him. The old man was deprived of the office of Master of the Rolls, and the young one of that of Solicitor-General. Both were employed again in the next reign. St. Leger was reconciled to Ormonde, and in spite of his prayers was restored to his government with increased honours and an hereditary pension.279
Murder of Ormonde.
Ormonde never saw Ireland again. He kept fifty servants in London, who invited him to sup with them at Limehouse. After supper the whole company sickened, and seventeen in all died. The Earl was carried to Ely House in Holborn, where he lingered for several days, but at last succumbed. There seems to have been no inquiry into this tragedy, and one might suspect that the Government took this means of releasing themselves from a man who had become inconveniently powerful, and whose services were too eminent to attack openly. Henry had no particular scruples about assassination, when, as in Cardinal Beaton’s case, he could not reach his enemy by other means; but he would hardly have been likely to poison a subject against whom he could always compass an Act of Attainder. The fact that Ormonde’s loyalty was above suspicion may have rendered this course difficult, and Henry may have seen in him a possible Earl of Kildare. He was ambitious, very powerful, impatient of interference, and by no means tamely subservient to the ruler of the hour. There is no reason to suppose that Hertford or Wriothesley were capable of such a crime. Warwick was capable of anything; but if he had suspected the Seymours, he would hardly have allowed the matter to be hushed up. An anecdote of Ormonde’s son, the famous tenth Earl, perhaps points to a suspicion against Leicester’s father; but it is not likely that the mystery will ever be cleared up. The ‘Four Masters’ say St. Leger had boasted that either he or Ormonde should never return to Ireland; but this is not mentioned by older annalists, nor in the official correspondence, and it is just the sort of story that would have been concocted afterwards. Ormonde’s vast estates passed quietly to his heir, a boy of fourteen, who became the most famous and powerful man of his age and country. The boy was educated at the English Court, and 200 marks a year out of his lands in Ireland were assigned for his support.280
All Deputies had difficulties with the Butlers and the permanent officials.
Scarcely any Deputy could escape collison with the head of the Butler family, whose influence rested on lasting foundations and not on the favour of the Dublin Government. Moreover, permanent officials, who had powerful connections in the county, knew how to thwart their nominal superior; and, unless he happened to be a man of great tact, difficulties were sure to arise. Grey and Bellingham quarrelled with the Council. Sidney viewed the Ormonde of his day with unconcealed jealousy and suspicion. Strafford was at war with the Lord-Treasurer Cork and with the Vice-Treasurer Mountnorris; and his treatment of the latter contributed to his fall. Lord Fitzwilliam was beaten by a revenue commissioner, Lord Townsend by the boroughmongers; and the lawyers have often been able to make combinations enabling them to dictate their own terms. Australian governors can best appreciate the difficulties of Ireland’s rulers in past times.
Henry’s Irish policy; why it failed.
Henry VIII.’s plan for the government of Ireland was very different from that which his children pursued. Evidently he did not desire to plant colonists in the country, but rather to civilise the people as they were. By creating some of the great chiefs Earls, and by insisting on their going to Court for investiture, he hoped gradually to convert them into supporters. Such cases as that of Tirlogh O’Toole show that he knew how to be both gracious and just. On the other hand, the ferocity of his character was exemplified by his treatment of the five Geraldine brethren. He was a thoroughly selfish man, but in matters which did not concern him personally he had many of the qualifications of a statesman. Had England remained in communion with Rome, his tentative and patient policy might have succeeded in Ireland. The Reformation caused its failure, for there never was the slightest chance of native Ireland embracing the new doctrines. The monasteries had not weighed heavily on Ireland, and their destruction made many bitter enemies and few friends. By upsetting the whole ecclesiastical structure, Henry left the field clear for Jesuits and wandering friars; and his children reaped the fruits of a mistake which neutralised every effort to win Ireland.
FOOTNOTES:
247. Indenture in O’Carroll’s case, July 2, 1541, in Carew.
248. Submission of O’Donnell, Aug. 6, 1541; O’Donnell to the King, April 20, 1542: ‘Iterum Vestram Majestatem exortor, mittatis mihi instrumentum illud aureum, quo colla nobilium cinguntur, aut katenam, vestesque congruentes, quibus vestirer decenter, quoties accederem (data opportunitate) ad Parliamentum.’
249. Lord Deputy and Council to the King, Aug. 28, 1541; Four Masters, 1541: ‘he left them without corn for that year.’
250. St. Leger to the King, Dec. 17, 1541.
251. Articles binding Con Bacagh O’Neill, in S.P., vol. iii., No. 356: ‘Regem recognosco Supremum Caput Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ et Hibernicanæ immediate sub Christo; et imposterum, in quantum potero, compellam omnes degentes sub meo regimine, ut similiter faciant; et si contingat aliquem provisorem aut provisores aliquas facultates sive bullas obtinere de prædicta usurpata auctoritate, illos sursum reddere dictas bullas et facultates cogam, et semetipsos
