The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

Effect of Bosworth Field

The Earl of Kildare, notified of the appointment of the new king's uncle, Jasper, Duke of Bedford, declined to be bound by the results of the Battle of Bosworth Field, and when a priest brought to Ireland a boy whom he declared to be the Earl of Warwick, son of the late Duke of Clarence, and therefore the rightful heir to the throne of England, Kildare eagerly seized the opportunity thus presented. Lambert Simnel, the youth in question, was received with royal honours by Kildare and the Anglo-Irish, his claims declared proved, and his identity admitted. On May 24, 1487, the impostor was crowned King of England and Ireland under the title of Edward VI. The ceremony took place in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, and in the presence of the whole viceregal staff, the principal ecclesiastics and the civic officials, Kildare had the leading part after Lambert Simnel, although the Earl of Lincoln, who had been appointed viceroy by his uncle, Richard III., was also present. Immediately the coronation was over a special coinage was struck, and the comedy protracted by the creation of Kildare as Regent and Protector.

The Earl of Lincoln was given the command of the army to strike the decisive blow in England, but the Duke of Bedford, Henry's viceroy, met the rebel forces at Stoke and crushed them. Simnel was taken prisoner, and Henry, with that sense of humour and a political tact rare in monarchs, decided to emphasize his victory by ridicule rather than the executioner's axe. Simnel was made a turnspit in the royal kitchens and a salary paid him regularly. Had he been executed, his unlucky followers might have made him a hero and themselves patriots; as it was, they were compelled to seek oblivion for their cause and hide their shame. Kildare, however, remained defiant. To him Simnel had been only the means to an end that had enabled him to demonstrate to the English throne and its advisers that the destinies of Ireland could not be subject to the vagaries of English politicians. Henry determined to try diplomatic persuasion, and he sent Sir Richard Edgecombe, a Privy Councillor, to offer Kildare a free pardon if he would swear fealty to the king and give a bond for his good behaviour. The deputy offered to submit, though he would not give a bond, and after considerable wrangling the question of security was waived aside, and the Earl of Kildare once more reigned in Dublin Castle. The records of the meetings between Kildare and Edgecombe are very full, and it would seem that the earl's threats to turn 'Irish'—that is, formally separate his family from England—had more to do with Henry's capitulation than anything else.

Perkin Warbeck

Kildare's appointment was as deputy to the Duke of Bedford, and for four years Irish affairs had no connection with English. But the success of usurpers breeds impostors, and Henry, who had seized his throne by force, had once more to face an impostor and a rebellion. Perkin Warbeck, avowing himself to be Richard, Duke of York, and armed with a circumstantial story of his escape from the Tower of London, landed at Cork, having journeyed from Lisbon, and sent messages to Kildare ordering him to join him there with an army. Whatever the earl's answer may have been, Perkin did not wait for it, preferring to seek temporary safety in Paris. The deputy, however, had always shown a fondness for impostors, and Henry, unable to trust any of the leaders of the English in Ireland, sent Walter Fitz-Simon to be the deputy in place of Kildare. Fitz-Simon worked assiduously to secure the Earl's fall, and when he returned to England in 1493, leaving Viscount Gormanstown as his deputy, he was able to nullify the effects of Kildare's passionate protests to Henry VII. The next year Henry appointed his son, then aged four, afterwards Henry VIII., to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and his deputy was the notorious profligate and zealous soldier, Sir Edward Poynings, the son of Elizabeth Paston. The "Paston Letters" throw much light upon the workings of the viceroyalty of the period, although Poynings himself had only a couple of years' experience of that country. He did Henry two notable acts of service, however, by capturing Kildare and sending him a prisoner to London, and by driving Perkin Warbeck out of Ireland.

When Kildare was imprisoned in the Tower of London, his fate seemed settled, but he was too clever for the age he lived in, and he succeeded, a stranger in a strange country, in securing his liberation and the annulling by Parliament of his act of attainder. Kildare thereupon became the lion of the London season. He was invited everywhere, and every class of society crowded to see the man who had held Ireland in his power. All the time he was nominally under arrest, with serious charges pending against him. When Henry summoned the earl to his presence, and offered him the choice of any man in the kingdom to be his counsellor, Kildare promptly chose the king himself! It was a piece of shrewd flattery, but it had less to do with Kildare's restoration to favour than his marriage with the king's first cousin, Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver St. John. The moment his alliance with the clever daughter of a powerful family became known, Kildare's enemies melted away, and the king, saving his face by insisting upon Kildare's son remaining in London as a hostage for his father's good conduct, restored Kildare to his deputyship, and sent him back to Ireland. Henry Deane, a cleric who had been holding the post, retired, and was rewarded later with the See of Canterbury.

The character of Kildare is well illustrated by a story told concerning his fiery temper. The Bishop of Meath, suffering from jealousy and a grievance, declared to the king that all Ireland could not rule the earl. 'Then, in good faith,' cried the king, 'shall the earl rule all Ireland!'

The Hill of the Axes

Perkin Warbeck revisited Ireland, but the men of Waterford drove him from the country without any help from Dublin. In 1503 Kildare was summoned to London to receive evidence of the king's pleasure and approbation. This took the shape of a portion of the king's wardrobe, a signal mark of honour in those days. Returning with his son Gerald, who had married into a powerful English family, Kildare won the famous Battle of Knocdoe, or 'The Hill of the Axes,' and was given the garter for his success. The Battle of Knocdoe was the result of a bitter quarrel between the Earl of Kildare and the Earl of Clanricarde. The latter had married a daughter of the deputy's, and had treated her with such cruelty that Kildare intervened. In revenge Clanricarde formed a confederacy between certain Irish chiefs to overthrow the authority of the king in Ireland.