The Lord Deputy’s entreaties for release were heard at last, and the government was conferred on Sir Thomas Radcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, afterwards created Earl of Sussex, who, but for his Irish service, would bear one of the fairest characters in our history. Mary rejoiced that the true Catholic faith had by God’s great goodness and special grace been recovered in England and Ireland, and she directed her representative ‘to set forth the honour and dignity of the Pope’s Holiness and See Apostolic of Rome, and from time to time to be ready with our aid and secular force, at the request of all spiritual ministers and ordinaries there, to punish and repress all heretics and Lollards and their damnable sects, opinions, and errors.’ Cardinal Pole, she added, was about to send over a legatine commission to visit the Irish Church, and official assistance was to be given ‘in all and everything belonging to the function and office legatine, for the advancement of God’s glory and the honour of the See Apostolic.’ The new governor was reminded that he lay under an obligation to execute justice, and was exhorted at much greater length to exert himself for the improvement of the revenue. A Parliament was to be held, chiefly as a means of restoring religion according to the Queen’s ideas, of settling her marriage and succession, and of voting a subsidy. Sir Henry Sidney, who now makes his first appearance in Irish history, accompanied the Lord Deputy as Vice-Treasurer. He brought with him a sum of 25,000l.[403]
A warlike mayor of Dublin.
About the time of the new Lord Deputy’s arrival, the Kavanaghs made a raid into the neighbourhood of Dublin. Sir George Stanley took command of the citizens, and drove 140 of the assailants into Powerscourt, where they had to surrender at discretion. Seventy-four were hanged. John Challoner, who was Mayor of Dublin at the time, provided the civic force with arms, which he had brought at his own expense from Spain. This martial magistrate was offered knighthood, but he excused himself. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘it will be more to my credit and my posterity’s to have it said that John Challoner served the Queen upon occasion, than to say that Sir John Challoner did it.’[404]
Sussex makes a journey into Ulster, 1556.
Sussex landed at Dublin towards the end of May, and received the sword from St. Leger’s willing hands. The religious ceremonies were of a kind entirely satisfactory to the Queen. After a month’s stay in the capital he set out for the North, and appeared in church both at Drogheda and Dundalk. The force mustered on this occasion was very considerable, for besides the regular soldiers and Ormonde’s followers, the gentlemen of the Pale were called on to serve with from one to six horsemen each. The Plunkets contributed twenty-four horse, the Nugents eighteen horse and twenty-four foot. Dublin sent sixty horsemen and gunners, and Drogheda forty men well appointed. ‘The Byrnes and the Tooles’ wastes’ in Wicklow were expected to send twelve horse each, and other Irish contingents joined on the march. The first Sunday was spent at a mill beyond Newry, where Dowdall said Mass, and where O’Hanlon, whose chiefry seems to have been disputed, was solemnly proclaimed. Mention is made of a great hill of stones, which was, perhaps, the traditional spot for the election of an O’Hanlon. Passing along the right bank of the Newry river, which he crossed near Tanderagee, Sussex reached the Laggan valley near Moira, and passing Belfast, reached Carrickfergus on the ninth day after leaving Dublin. From this the army marched across the central districts of Antrim, and, at last, on the twenty-fourth day from Dublin, Sussex reached Glenarm, and found that James MacDonnell had fled before him into Scotland. The fugitive sent to France for help, but his envoy’s proceedings were counteracted by Paget’s vigilance. A quantity of cattle were captured, besides butter and other produce hid in a cave. This seems to have been the only result of an expedition which lasted thirty-seven days. Sussex dismissed his allies at their old rendezvous near Newry, and on the very next day, as if in ridicule of his efforts, a messenger arrived to say that the Scots had attacked the rear guard. Sidney afterwards said that he had slain James MacConnell, a mighty Scots captain, during this expedition. Some Scots of name were certainly killed, and one of them may have been called James; but the real James MacDonnell was back at Glenarm before the end of the year.[405]
His failure.
The moral which Sussex drew from this inglorious expedition was that the North could only be held by a chain of forts along the coast from Dundalk to Lough Foyle. Some part at least of the expense would be paid by the salmon fisheries of the Foyle, the Bann, and the Bush; and by the herring, cod, ling, and hake fisheries, of which Carlingford was the chief seat. A good English bishop would also, he thought, be a means to civilise the country. It had not yet been discovered that making the Church a badge of conquest only served to make religion itself odious. The dislike of the Irish to English ecclesiastics had been marked throughout the middle ages, and even if England had remained in communion with Rome, bishops who were Government officials first and chief pastors afterwards, could scarcely have ministered successfully to the wants of O’Neills and O’Donnells.[406]
The King’s and Queen’s Counties.
The natives.
The settlement of Leix was in outward form completed, and Sussex received the Queen’s thanks for it. The arrangements were not without a show of equity; but the old inhabitants could not reconcile themselves to the intrusion of a colony, and their pertinacious opposition forced the Government to treat them with far more rigour than had been at first intended. The western half of the new Queen’s County was originally reserved for the O’Mores, each head of a sept becoming a landlord holding an estate in tail by knight-service. The chiefs were prohibited from keeping any idlemen except of their own sept, or more than one for every 100 acres. They were to attend the constable of the fort when required, to repair bridges, and at all times to keep the passes open between their districts and those occupied by the English. They were to dress like Englishmen, except when riding, and to teach their children to speak English, to attend the Deputy annually, and to use only the Common Law. All above twelve were required to take the oath of allegiance. Forfeiture was prescribed for a persistent refusal to keep the passes open; for retaining superfluous idlemen; for keeping more than one set of harness; for interrupting communication with the English; for making a private way; for marrying and fostering with the Irish, and for absenteeism. The Deputy’s licence removed the penalty in all these cases. For keeping unlicensed firearms the first offence was to be punished by forfeiture, and the second by death.