St. Leger has some idea of toleration.
It was impossible that any secret policy could go on without Alen having a hand in it. St. Leger told him that the danger from both France and from the Emperor was much increased by the religious sympathies of the Irish, who, in civil matters, would like foreigners only in so far as they could profit by them. He ridiculed the notion of France annexing Ireland, though he thought it possible that Henry II. might make a diversion there to prevent England from interfering with him in Scotland or on the Continent. He thought the Emperor would be friendly for old acquaintance sake, but that he disliked the new fashions in religion; ‘and no wonder, seeing that in that matter daily at home among ourselves one of us is offended with another.’ St. Leger, in short, was a statesman who could admire moral excellence in men of different opinions; and Browne was a fanatic. ‘God help me!’ said the Deputy. ‘For my own part, knowing the manners and ignorance of the people, when my lords of the Council willed me to set forth the matters of religion here, which to my power I have done, I had rather they had called me into Spain or any other place where the King should have had cause to make war, than burdensome to sit further here. I told my lords no less before my coming away.’ Alen had refused to put this conversation in writing, though urged to do so by Browne; saying that he wished St. Leger no harm, though he had lost all through him. He said as little as might be against him even when questioned afterwards by the Council. After his interview with the Lord Deputy, Alen went to sup with Lockwood, Dean of Christ Church, and found there the Archbishop and Basnet, late Dean of St. Patrick’s. When the servants had gone the conversation turned upon St. Leger, whom Browne attacked on the grounds already mentioned, saying that he was but a ‘dissimular in religion.’ He was, in fact, a thoroughly secular politician, wise and resolute, and willing to carry out orders from the Government; but not pretending to like the plan of forcing an English-made religion upon the Irish, and administering it in practice as gently as possible. He was really in advance of his time, and had formed some notion of religious liberty. That he sympathised with the old creed there is not the smallest reason to suppose. ‘They name me a Papist,’ he said. ‘I would to God I were to try it with them that so nameth me;’ and he was accused in Mary’s reign of writing satirical verses against Transubstantiation, which shows that his opinions were not supposed to be anti-Protestant. He would have had things stay as they were under Henry VIII; the royal supremacy acknowledged, and doctrinal changes left to the action of time, persuasion, and increased enlightenment.[361]
These views not in favour in England.
But these ideas did not recommend themselves to the English Council, which had now come under Warwick’s influence. Neither the bishopric of Leighlin nor that of Ossory was granted to St. Leger’s chaplain, James Bicton; though his patron strenuously defended him against the charge of Papal leanings, declaring that there was no more competent man in Ireland, nor one who had better set forth God’s Word. Bicton, who had been formerly chaplain to the Earl of Ormonde, was of Irish birth, though educated at Oxford, and was at all events not one of the very ignorant priests whom St. Leger cast up against his friend the Primate. He became Dean of Ossory, and had a large chest of books at Kilkenny, besides a wine cask full at Bristol, for which he had paid 40l.; and he seems to have supported a poor Irish scholar at Oxford. It would be difficult to say anything so good of Travers, who was preferred before him at Leighlin. Travers owed his promotion to his cousin the Master of the Ordnance, whose chaplain he had been; but he did no credit to his blood, scarcely anything being recorded of him but that he oppressed his clergy and made money out of his see.[362]
Sir James Croft succeeds St. Leger, 1551.
Whatever was the exact cause of St. Leger’s recall, it is likely that he was glad to escape from the thankless Irish service. Sir James Croft, his successor-designate, was already in Ireland, and he handed him the reins without waiting for his patent. Croft was directed to put the seaports of Munster and Ulster into a defensible state; but the English Government showed a bad example, for though Argyle was plotting in the North and MacCarthy in the South, the artillery was sent over in charge of a clerk only. MacCarthy was to be apprehended if possible, and also George Paris, who was ‘a common post between Ireland and France,’ sailing in French ships which were to be overhauled in search of him. When the thousand men who had been promised arrived at Cork there was no money to pay them. Croft and his advisers begged and borrowed till both credit and provisions were well-nigh exhausted in the barren wilds of West Cork. Soldiers unpunctually paid could not but be dangerous, and there was no sort of justice to be obtained in the country districts. ‘If in England,’ said Crofts, using an apt illustration, ‘the place of justice were appointed only at Dover, I think no man doubts but the people would soon grow out of order.’ A thorough reform in the official circle, head and members, was necessary before any great improvement could be expected in the people. Before leaving Cork, Croft did what he could to secure local justice by drawing up regulations for maintaining the peace of the district under Desmond’s general superintendence, not greatly differing from those already supposed to be in force, but with a clause which shows how the Puritan spirit was working. The Earl and those joined in authority with him were to have a special care to ‘set forth divine service according to the King’s proceeding, and diligently to look for the punishment of harlots, for which purposes they may call for the bishops and ministers within their circuit, giving them warning of their duties to see them punished according to the orders taken in that behalf.’ MacCarthy More, who had submitted, was required with his clansmen to swear allegiance to Edward VI. as King, and also as ‘supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland, and clearly to renounce the Bishop of Rome and all his authority,’ and take his ‘oath on the Bible’ to obey all laws, civil and ecclesiastical, set forth by the King and his successors.
Croft proposes to colonise in West Munster.
Archbishop Browne, having got rid of St. Leger, was loud in praise of his successor’s activity, who was the first governor to visit Baltimore (Ballagheyntymore). Crofts proposed to the Council that a colony of married Englishmen with their wives and families should be planted in this remote place, who, after serving as soldiers for a time, would be able to protect themselves as others had done at Calais. But the King blamed Croft for visiting Baltimore at all, since he had not the power to do anything there. In August the time for fortifying was already past; and there was a danger that Spanish fishermen might discover the Lord Deputy’s intentions, and even find means to forestall them.[363]
The Ulster Scots attacked. Failure at Rathlin, 1551.
The affairs of Ulster next engaged the attention of Croft. The Scots had lately made themselves supreme from the Giant’s Causeway to Belfast; and it was determined to attack them there, and, if possible, to capture the island stronghold of Rathlin, whither the MacDonnells had transported all the cattle and horses taken by them in their late raid. A hosting was accordingly proclaimed for thirty-one days, and the army mustered at Carrickfergus. The roads being impassable for carts, everything had to be carried on pack horses or by sea. The Lord Deputy himself went by land through the country of several Irish chiefs, of whose intelligence Chancellor Cusack, who tells the story, formed a favourable opinion. Some of them joined the expedition. Meat was abundant throughout the four days’ journey, at the rate of 10s. a beef and 16d. a mutton; much less than the prices of the Pale. Leaving the heavy baggage at Carrickfergus, Croft advanced to Glenarm, where he encamped. No Scots appeared, and but few cattle; but immense stores of corn were found. There lay at Ballycastle four small vessels which the English men-of-war had captured, and some of the prisoners from the Scots were brought before the Lord Deputy. The result of their examination was a resolution at once to attack Rathlin, where James MacDonnell and his brethren were. It was found that the captured boats would only carry 200 men, and it was therefore resolved not to risk a landing unless some more of the Scots vessels could be taken, or unless the men in the island yielded to the fear of the cannon upon the English ships. Sir Ralph Bagenal and Captain Cuffe approached the island with about 100 men, but the galleys which they wished to seize were at once driven in shore, and a threatening crowd of Scots hung about the landing-place, and took no notice of the fire from the ships, which was probably too vague to endanger them much. The tide was ebbing, and the invaders seemed to run no great risk; but the Race of Rathlin, even in the finest weather, is never quite calm, and a sudden reflux wave lifted Cuffe’s boat high and dry on to the rocks. The men, about twenty-five, were slain on the spot, the officers taken and held by James MacDonnell as pledges for the return of the goods taken from him about Glenarm, and for the release of his brother Sorley Boy, who was a prisoner in Dublin. Croft was obliged to yield on both points, and the whole expedition ended in failure. The threat of complaining to the Scots Government was not likely to weigh much with MacDonnell, who was on good terms with the anti-English party.[364]