AFTER the premature death of Henry IV, an able but unscrupulous sovereign, in 1413, the attention of England was again directed to the conquest of France by the chivalrous and skilful Henry V. His capture of Harfleur and marvelous victory of Agincourt, against overwhelming odds, in 1415, stamp him as one of the world’s great military leaders. During the nine years of his reign, he succeeded in subduing France, and, finally, married Catherine, heiress of Charles VI, an almost imbecile king, and had himself declared regent and next in succession to the throne after his father-in-law. France was stupefied, but God, infinitely stronger than French arms, decreed Henry’s early death. He died in the conquered country in 1422, leaving an only son, Henry VI, an infant of nine months, to succeed him, under the regency of his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who, for a wonder, considering the history of the Plantagenets, remained faithful to his trust. John, Duke of Bedford, a younger brother of Henry, and a very brilliant soldier, became regent of France. This was the period of the inspired peasant-girl, Joan of Arc, whose story of victory and death belongs to the history of France, although, after having performed prodigies, she died at the stake to which the English, into whose hands she had fallen, condemned her. The Dauphin, as Charles VII, succeeded to his legitimate throne, and, about 1453, the English were expelled from France, except the old town of Calais, which remained in their possession until 1558. In Ireland, meanwhile, the chief feuds were those between the Geraldines and the Butlers and the De Burgos and the Connaught chiefs. There were also minor feuds in different parts of the island, but, as a rule, the Irish people had things pretty much their own way, and might have thrown off the English yoke utterly, if they had had an Edward Bruce or Art MacMurrough to arouse and lead them to victory. Unfortunately they had not, and, as the English fetter was very light on Ireland during the Wars of the Roses, which began in 1455, they imagined, perhaps, that the old enemy, having plenty of fighting to do on their own account, might leave them alone for evermore—a vain hope if it were seriously entertained.
After an interval of six years, the Wars of the Roses—so-called because the red rose was the badge of the House of Lancaster and the white that of the House of York—broke out more violently than before, because Henry VI, who had been declared imbecile and unfit to reign, suddenly recovered his intellect, and Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who claimed a prior right to the throne, and had been appointed Regent, with the right of succession, refused to give up his authority. Henry had a son by his brave wife, Margaret of Anjou. He might be called a weakling, but she summoned the people to defend the rights of her son. York was defeated, captured, and beheaded at Wakefield, in 1461, but his son Edward, Earl of March, routed the queen’s army immediately afterward and ascended the throne as Edward IV. Struggle succeeded struggle, but the House of York achieved a crowning triumph at Tewkesbury and again at Barnet Heath, where Warwick, the King Maker, fell. The direct male line of the House of Lancaster perished at Tewkesbury, where, it is alleged, the gallant Prince Edward, son of Henry VI, was murdered, after having been made prisoner, by Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence—the same afterward drowned in a butt of wine by order of his cruel brother. King Edward IV, after a reign of twenty-two years, marked by slaughter of his foes and some of his friends, notorious immorality, and swinish debauchery, died of a fever brought on by his excesses, in 1483, and his vile younger brother, the Duke of Gloucester, succeeded the boy-king, Edward V, by process of murder, in the same year. The last battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought at Bosworth, near Leicester, August 22, 1485. Richard, last king of the Plantagenet family, fell and was succeeded by his rival, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, descended, in the female line, from John of Gaunt, who ascended the throne as Henry VII.
Thus, you will see, Ireland was left pretty much to herself, during those thirty years of English civil war, in which twelve murderous pitched battles were fought. Most of the old nobility were killed in battle or executed, or otherwise destroyed, and more than one hundred thousand Englishmen of the middle and lower classes were immolated on the smoking altars of family pride and savage ambition. Every prince of the race of Plantagenet was exterminated when, in 1599, Henry VII ordered the beheading of the young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence. Many of the Anglo-Irish lords and their followings took part in the English wars, mainly on the side of the House of York, and the Geraldines, in particular, got sadly mixed up in them, for which they suffered amply in after days. No reigning king of England had set foot in Ireland since Richard II sailed to his death from Dublin, and Henry VII proved to be no exception to the rule. He, however, interfered in the quarrel between the Fitzgeralds and the Butlers—as bitter and prolonged as that between the Camerons and Campbells in Scotland—and made the Earl of Kildare viceroy. The Desmonds, the powerful southern branch of the Geraldines, were also eternally at variance with the Butlers. It is related that, on one occasion, the Earl of Desmond was wounded and made prisoner. While being borne on a litter to Butler’s stronghold, one of the bearers insolently and brutally demanded, “Where is the great Earl of Desmond now?” To which the heroic captive immediately replied—“Where he ought to be” (alluding to the litter in which he was carried by his foes): “still on the necks of the Butlers!”
The most memorable event of Henry VII’s reign, as far as Ireland was concerned, was the coming over from England of Sir Edward Poynings, as Lord Deputy during the temporary retirement of Kildare. The English colonists of the Pale, almost from their first settlement of that district, possessed an independent parliament, modeled on that of England. It was, in general, oppressive toward the Celtic-Irish, but made good laws enough for the Palesmen. Poynings, soon after his arrival, called this parliament to assemble at Drogheda and there (1495) the Statute of Kilkenny was reaffirmed, except as regarded the prohibition of Gaelic, which had come into general use, even in the Pale itself. The main enactment—the first uttered in the English tongue in Ireland—was that known as 10 Henry VII, otherwise Poynings’ Law, which provided that no legislation should be, thereafter, proceeded with in Ireland unless the bills were first submitted for approval or rejection to the monarch and privy council of England. In case of approval they were to be attested by the great seal of the English realm. It was, to be sure, a most unjust and insolent measure, and it seems almost incredible that even the Pales people—mere hybrids, neither English nor Irish—should have tamely submitted to its infamous provisions. It remained in force 287 years, or until 1782, when it was repealed under circumstances that will appear hereafter.
The close of this reign witnessed a bloody struggle between the Kildares and Clanricardes, in which many Celtic tribes also bore a part, and in which thousands of men lost their lives to no good purpose. In the two principal battles, those of Knockdoe and Monabraher (1507-10), artillery and musketry were first made use of on Irish soil.
As most of the Irish Palesmen, including the House of Kildare, were partisans of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses, the two pretenders—prepared by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV, to impersonate, respectively, Edward, Earl of Warwick, only son and heir of the late Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of York, the second son of Edward IV, who was murdered in the Tower, by order, it is said, of his base uncle, Richard III, together with his brother, the boy-king, Edward V—found adherents when they landed on Irish soil. Indeed, Lambert Simnel, the first of these pretenders, a handsome young Englishman, who resembled the princes of the House of York, was crowned king, as “Edward VI,” in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Many Pales Irish followed him to England, where Henry VII defeated and made him prisoner. The real Warwick was taken from the Tower and paraded through the streets-a sad spectacle of physical comeliness marred, and intellect clouded, by long and harsh confinement. Having been sufficiently exhibited to satisfy the public of Simnel’s imposture, the poor boy was returned to his cell. Simnel, himself, was made a “turnspit” in the royal kitchen, afterward raised to the post of falconer, and ended his days in that humble position. The second pretender, Perkin Warbeck, a Belgian by birth, had less support from Ireland than his predecessor, but involved some of the nobles of the Pale with King Henry. But his adherents, remembering the imposition of the bogus Edward VI, soon fell away, and Perkin went to Scotland, where James IV received him, as if he were a genuine prince, and gave him his cousin, the lovely Lady Catherine Gordon, in marriage. Peace being concluded between James and Henry, Warbeck and his beautiful bride went to Cornwall. There the pretender, who was really a man of noble presence and great ability, rallied 3,000 men to his standard. Successful at first, he proved himself a false Plantagenet by basely deserting his confiding followers on the eve of decisive battle. He shut himself up in the sanctuary of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, but soon surrendered himself, and was shown by the king to the populace of London. He was well treated for a time, but his position was mortifying. He ran off to another sanctuary, was again forced to give himself up, was placed in the public stocks, confessed he was an impostor, and was finally sent to the Tower, to keep company with the unhappy Warwick. This circumstance enabled the crafty Henry to get up a so-called plot, of which it was easy to convict two helpless prisoners. Warwick—last male of the Plantagenets—lost his head on Tower Hill, and Warbeck died by the rope at Tyburn. His charming widow became lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
Many abbeys and monasteries were built in Ireland during this comparatively tranquil period, and the passion for learning revived to a great extent among the native Irish nobility. Pilgrimages, as of old, were made to distant lands for the purpose of worshiping at famous shrines. Irish teachers and scholars began again to be numerous in Spain, Germany, and Italy. Henry VII, engaged in saving the wreck of England’s almost extinguished nobility, and in hoarding money, for which he had a passion, took little account of Ireland and the Irish. But, already, low on the horizon, a blood-red cloud was forming, and it gradually thickened and extended until, at last, it broke in a crimson torrent on the fated Irish nation.
BOOK II
TREATING OF IRISH AFFAIRS FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION TO THE EXILE AND DEATH OF THE ULSTER PRINCES IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I