of neither. Dowdall fled; his see was treated as vacant, and Cranmer cast about him for a Protestant to fill St Patrick’s chair. His first nominee, Dr Richard Turner, resolutely declined the honour, declaring that he would be unintelligible to the people; and Cranmer could only answer that English was spoken in Ireland, though he did indeed doubt whether it was spoken in the diocese of Armagh. John Bale, a man of great learning and ability, became bishop of Ossory. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity, but he was coarse and intemperate—Froude roundly calls him a foul-mouthed ruffian—without the wisdom of the serpent or the harmlessness of the dove. His choice rhetoric stigmatized the dean of St Patrick’s as ass-headed, a blockhead who cared only for his kitchen and his belly.
The Reformation having made no real progress, Mary found
it easy to recover the old ways. Dowdall was restored; Staples
and others were deprived. Bale fled for bare life,
and his see was treated as vacant. Yet the queen
found it impossible to restore the monastic lands,
Mary
(1553–1558).
though she showed some disposition to scrutinize
the titles of grantees. She was Tudor enough to declare her
intention of maintaining the old prerogatives of the crown
against the Holy See, and assumed the royal title without
papal sanction. Paul IV. was fain to curb his fiery temper,
and to confer graciously what he could not withhold. English
Protestants fled to Ireland to escape the Marian persecution;
but had the reign continued a little longer, Dublin would probably
have been no safe place of refuge.
Mary scarcely varied the civil policy of her brother’s ministers. Gerald of Kildare, who had been restored to his estates by Edward VI., was created earl of Kildare. The plan of settling Leix and Offaly by dividing the country between colonists and natives holding by English tenure failed, owing to the unconquerable love of the people for their own customs. But resistance gradually grew fainter, and we hear little of the O’Connors after this. The O’Mores, reduced almost to brigandage, gave trouble till the end of Elizabeth’s reign, and a member of the clan was chief contriver of the rebellion of 1641. Maryborough and Philipstown, King’s county and Queen’s county, commemorate Mary’s marriage.
Anne Boleyn’s daughter succeeded quietly, and Sir Henry
Sidney was sworn lord-justice with the full Catholic ritual.
When Thomas Radclyffe, earl of Sussex, superseded
him as lord-lieutenant, the litany was chanted in
English, both cathedrals having been painted, and
Elizabeth
(1558–1603).
scripture texts substituted for “pictures and popish
fancies.” At the beginning of 1560 a parliament was held
which restored the ecclesiastical legislation of Henry and Edward.
In two important points the Irish Church was made more dependent
on the state than in England: congés d’élire were abolished
and heretics made amenable to royal commissioners or to parliament
without reference to any synod or convocation. According
to a contemporary list, this parliament consisted of 3 archbishops,
17 bishops, 23 temporal peers, and members returned
by 10 counties and 28 cities and boroughs. Some of the Irish
bishops took the oath of supremacy, some were deprived. In
other cases Elizabeth connived at what she could not prevent,
and hardly pretended to enforce uniformity except in the Pale
and in the large towns.
Ulster demanded the immediate attention of Elizabeth.
Her father had conferred the earldom of Tyrone on Conn Bacach
O’Neill, with remainder to his supposed son Matthew,
created baron of Dungannon, the offspring of a
smith’s wife at Dundalk, who in her husband’s lifetime
Rebellion of
Shane O’Neill.
brought the child to Conn as his own. When the
chief’s legitimate son Shane grew up he declined to be bound
by this arrangement, which the king may have made in partial
ignorance of the facts. “Being a gentleman,” he said, “my
father never refusid no child that any woman namyd to be his.”
When Tyrone died, Matthew’s son, Brian O’Neill, baron of
Dungannon, claimed his earldom under the patent. Shane
being chosen O’Neill by his tribe claimed to be chief by election,
and earl as Conn’s lawful son. Thus the English government
was committed to the cause of one who was at best an adulterine
bastard, while Shane appeared as champion of hereditary right
(See O’Neill). Shane maintained a contest which had begun
under Mary until 1567, with great ability and a total absence
of morality, in which Sussex had no advantage over him. The
lord-lieutenant twice tried to have Shane murdered; once
he proposed to break his safe-conduct; and he held out hopes
of his sister’s hand as a snare. Shane was induced to visit
London, where the government detained him for some time.
On his return to Ireland, Sussex was outmatched both in war
and diplomacy; the loyal chiefs were crushed one by one;
and the English suffered checks of which the moral effect was
ruinous. Shane diplomatically acknowledged Elizabeth as his
sovereign, and sometimes played the part of a loyal subject,
wreaking his private vengeance under colour of expelling the
Scots from Ulster. At last, in 1566, the queen placed the sword
of state in Sidney’s strong grasp. Shane was driven helplessly
from point to point, and perished miserably at the hands of the
MacDonnells, whom he had so often oppressed and insulted.
Peace was soon broken by disturbances in the south. The earl of Desmond having shown rebellious tendencies was detained for six years in London. Treated leniently, but grievously pressed for money, he tried to escape, and, the attempt being judged treasonable, he was persuaded First Desmond Rebellion, 1574. to surrender his estates—to receive them back or not at the queen’s discretion. Seizing the opportunity, English adventurers proposed to plant a military colony in the western half of Munster, holding the coast from the Shannon to Cork harbour. Some who held obsolete title-deeds were encouraged to go to work at once by the example of Sir Peter Carew, who had established his claims in Carlow. Carew’s title had been in abeyance for a century and a half, yet most of the Kavanaghs attorned to him. Falling foul of Ormonde’s brothers, seizing their property and using great cruelty and violence, Sir Peter drove the Butlers, the only one among the great families really loyal, into rebellion. Ormonde, who was in London, could alone restore peace; all his disputes with Desmond were at once settled in his favour, and he was even allowed to resume the exaction of coyne and livery, the abolition of which had been the darling wish of statesmen. The Butlers returned to their allegiance, but continued to oppose Carew, and great atrocities were committed on both sides. Sir Peter had great but undefined claims in Munster also, and the people there took warning. His imitators in Cork were swept away. Sidney first, and after him Humphrey Gilbert, could only circumscribe the rebellion. The presidency of Munster, an office the creation of which had long been contemplated, was then conferred on Sir John Perrot, who drove James “Fitzmaurice” Fitzgerald into the mountains, reduced castles everywhere, and destroyed a Scottish contingent which had come from Ulster to help the rebels. Fitzmaurice came in and knelt in the mud at the president’s feet, confessing his sins; but he remained the real victor. The colonizing scheme was dropped, and the first presidency of Munster left the Desmonds and their allies in possession. Similar plans were tried unsuccessfully in Ulster, first by a son of Sir Thomas Smith, afterwards by Walter Devereux, earl of Essex, a knight-errant rather than a statesman, who was guilty of many bloody deeds. He treacherously captured Sir Brian O’Neill and massacred his followers. The Scots in Rathlin were slaughtered wholesale. Essex struggled on for more than three years, seeing his friends gradually drop away, and dying ruined and unsuccessful.
Towards the end of 1575 Sidney was again persuaded to become viceroy. The Irish recognized his great qualities, and he went everywhere without interruption. Henceforth presidencies became permanent institutions. Sir William Drury in Munster hanged four hundred persons in one year, Sir Nicholas Malby in reducing the Connaught Burkes spared neither young nor old, and burned all corn and houses. The Desmonds determined on a great effort. A holy war was declared. Fitzmaurice landed in Kerry with a few followers, and accompanied by the
