CHAPTER XVIII.
THE REIGN OF MARY.
The succession to the crown.
Lawyers and casuists might dispute about the succession. Logically, Mary and Elizabeth could not both be legitimate; but the people of England swept these cobwebs away. Catherine had for twenty-two years borne the title of Queen, and in that great place she was not known to have done anything worthy of blame, but much deserving the highest praise. And then there was the will of Henry VIII. Its execution had perhaps been informal, but the people cared nothing for that; it was his will, and he had been authorised by Parliament to make it. The sick-room fancies of a boy of sixteen were not to be allowed to alter such a settlement.
Mary proclaimed.
The struggle for the crown was short, and was little felt at the distance at which Ireland then was, though the Dudley party took care that Queen Jane’s accession should be officially known there. On the thirteenth day after her brother’s death Mary was proclaimed by the Council in London, on the fourteenth the baffled Northumberland renewed the proclamation at Cambridge, on the fifteenth the grand conspirator himself was arrested. On the very day of the Cambridge proclamation the Privy Council wrote to Aylmer, the acting Lord Justice cancelling the former communication, and directing that Mary should be proclaimed ‘Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and on earth supreme head of the churches of England and Ireland.’[391]
St. Leger is Deputy, 1553.
Besides twelve Privy Councillors, six individuals connected with Ireland, who happened to be in England, signed these letters—Cusack, the Chancellor; Lord Gormanston; Staples, Bishop of Meath; Thomas Luttrell, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; James Bathe, Chief Baron; and the veteran John Alen. The object probably was to show the men in Dublin that this time at least there was no mistake as to which Queen they were to obey. Cusack, Aylmer, Luttrell, and Bathe were confirmed in their offices with increased emoluments, and no immediate change was made in the general management of Irish affairs. Some disturbances amongst the O’Connors were easily put down, and the citizens of Dublin repulsed a raid of the O’Neills near Dundalk. In the meantime Northumberland had expiated his crimes on the scaffold. Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstall, and others had been restored, and Cranmer, Latimer, and Hooper imprisoned; and there was time to think of the affairs of Ireland. In October, soon after the coronation, St. Leger was appointed Lord Deputy in fulfilment of the late King’s intention. He landed at Dalkey on November 11, and on the 19th took the oath and received the sword in Christ Church.
His instructions.
St. Leger’s instructions show the policy which Mary had adopted. As regards temporal affairs it did not greatly differ from that of her father. The Scots in Ulster were not to be molested unless they gave fresh trouble. The army was to be reduced to 500 regular soldiers, of which not more than ten per cent. were to be Irishmen. Extraordinary garrisons were to be discharged at the next general pay day, and if possible induced to go back to England without raising riots. The Lord Deputy might employ kerne and gallowglasses where necessary, and the usual private bands were to be continued; but coyne and livery were to be eschewed as much as possible. St. Leger found it impossible to carry out the reduction of the army lower than 1,100 men, besides kerne. The question as to the desirability of a Presidency for Munster was to be carefully considered in all its bearings. Leix and Offaly being in great measure waste, the Lord Deputy was to grant lands in fee simple at a small quit-rent either to Englishmen or Irishmen, binding them to erect and maintain farm buildings, and to till a certain portion of land. By this means it was hoped that these unfortunate districts would soon be made like the English Pale. Leases for twenty-one years were to be given to Crown tenants generally, including holders of monastic lands. Goodacre had just died, so that there was no difficulty about Armagh, to which, as well as to the Primacy of all Ireland, Dowdall was immediately restored, with the additional grant of the priory of Ards rent free for life. The Mass and the rest of the old religion was to be restored as nearly as possible.[392]