The viceroyalties of Sir John de Gray (1427-28), Sir John Sutton (1428-29), Sir Thomas le Strange (1429-31), and Sir Leon de Welles and his brother, William, who became his deputy (1438-46), were undistinguished. The deposed Earl of Ormonde succeeded in clearing himself of a charge of high treason, but the result of the bitterness and dissensions the charge provoked and fostered were felt for a long time.
The Earl of Shrewsbury
The reappointment of Sir John Talbot, now Earl of Shrewsbury, brought that strong and merciless old man—he was seventy-three—back to Ireland. He was created Earl of Waterford and Wexford, and Constable of Ireland, but even the valour and wiles of one of the bravest of warriors could not prevail against the owners of the land which had been granted to Talbot. Several times he quaintly informed the king that he was unable to collect a penny of his rents, an admission which the monarch politely disregarded. But Talbot left his mark on Ireland. Long service in the Continental wars had taught him many forms of cruelty and lust, and at seventy-three he showed that he had not forgotten what he had learnt. Not always victorious, he was always cruel and vicious. He found time to ape the statesman by presiding over a Parliament that decreed various ordinances, including the prohibition of moustaches—which were then almost exclusively worn by the native Irish, and coming into fashion amongst the Anglo-Irish. A writer of the period described Talbot as another Herod, and the country, including the colonists, who had found in him an oppressor instead of a protector, sighed with relief when the charms of a continental war called him from Ireland, and he left the Archbishop of Dublin to represent him. Talbot was little better than a hireling, and when he was killed at the age of eighty in a battle in France, he was not fighting for his country or for himself, but for a salary, and, no doubt, inspired by the lust of conflict.
A mother of kings
Talbot's retirement from Dublin enabled the king to remove a dangerous person, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, from his court, but although the duke's commission as viceroy was executed in 1447, he did not see fit to leave England until 1449, landing at Howth, near Dublin, on July 6. His deputy, Richard Nugent, met him and the duchess, a remarkable woman, who was one of the Earl of Westmorland's twenty-two children, and was the most beautiful of them all. Denied the throne for herself, she became the mother of two kings—Edward IV. and Richard III.—and it was her counsels which shaped her husband's destiny in Ireland. As befitting a prince of the blood royal, the duke made a triumphal entry into Dublin, and, guided by his wife, wisely conciliated the native chiefs and the leaders of the Anglo-Irish. They gave many banquets and entertainments in Dublin Castle, at which Irish and English mingled, quarrels being forgotten in the presence of the woman who was known as 'The Rose of Raby.' And when on October 21, 1449, she gave birth in Dublin Castle to her ninth child, George, afterwards Duke of Clarence, she diplomatically invited the Earls of Desmond and Ormonde to stand as sponsors.
The object of the duke and duchess was, of course, to gain adherents in Ireland for the coming conflict between the rival claimants to the throne of England. For hundreds of years Ireland had been looked upon as a source of income to the Kings of England; the viceroyalty was a place of profit, and most of the profits went into the king's treasury. Richard had many followers in England, and they were well aware of the fact that his viceroyalty was merely a pretext for exiling him, but they made good use of the misfortune, continually noising it abroad that the Duke of York was accomplishing wonders in Ireland, that his statesmanship, diplomacy, and valour proved indisputably that when the time came he would make an admirable king of both countries.
The disadvantage of a policy of conciliation, however, was the lack of revenues. Taxes could only be levied by force, and the viceroy deprecated that. He pawned his jewels manfully, and borrowed from his friends in England, France, and Ireland. Twice he wrote to the king asking for supplies, but that monarch had no intention of disguising the exile by lavishing money upon him, and the duke was compelled to return to England. This was in 1450, and for the next nine years he was absent from the country, his deputies in turn being the Archbishop of Armagh, 1454, Edmund Fitz-Eustace, 1454, and Thomas Fitz-Gerald, Earl of Kildare, who acted from 1455 to 1459. The duke's first choice was Sir James le Botiller, who was created Earl of Wiltshire before he succeeded his father in the Earldom of Ormonde, but this nobleman resided chiefly in England, and eventually became a Lancastrian.
Independence of its Parliament
The bewildering changes of fortune brought about by the Wars of the Roses had their full effect upon Ireland. The Duke of York was, of course, the leader of the Yorkists, and his sun was at its zenith when he defeated the Lancastrians at St. Albans and captured Henry VI. He was declared Protector of England and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1459 fortune turned against him; he was beaten in several encounters, and, finally, fled to Ireland with a few followers. In Dublin he found some consolation, although he had been unable to bring his wife with him. The Irish and the English joyfully welcomed him, and the Irish Parliament met at once and proclaimed him viceroy, formally declaring the acts of the Lancastrian Parliament at Coventry null and void so far as they concerned Ireland. The most significant feature of this meeting of the Irish Parliament was the formal statement that it was absolutely and entirely independent, and could not be controlled by the English Parliament. It acknowledged the obedience of Ireland to England, but 'nevertheless, it was separate from it and from all its laws and statutes except such as were accepted by the lords spiritual and temporal.' Richard established a mint at his castle of Trim; his son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, was appointed Chancellor of Ireland, the viceroy's person was declared sacred, and conspiracy against him high treason.
The Duke of York was undoubtedly the most popular man in Ireland, but the Lancastrians, who had gained the adherence of the Earl of Ormonde and Wiltshire, looked to the latter to remove the viceroy. The earl sent one of his retainers to arrest the duke on a charge of falsely representing himself to be His Majesty's—Henry VI.—Lieutenant for Ireland. The luckless squire was seized by Richard's officers, brought to trial, and eventually hanged, drawn, and quartered. The next move of the Lancastrian party was an abortive attempt to induce the native Irish to turn against the viceroy and murder him. This charge was denied vigorously, but there was every reason to believe that it was true. The Earls of Kildare and Desmond, however, came to Richard's aid, and they speedily secured the allegiance of the principal chieftains in Leinster and Munster. News of Yorkists' triumphs in England took Richard hastily to London, where he found an excited populace awaiting him, and calling upon him to crown himself King of England. The path to the throne seemed easy, but Queen Margaret, making one desperate rally for her family, met Richard near Wakefield on the last day of 1461, defeated his army, and killed him.