Recriminations. Great disorders.
Sir Piers was further accused of illegally occupying Callan and other royal manors in Kilkenny and Tipperary, but these lands were soon afterwards specially granted to him and his wife, and to their heirs male. Kildare charged his rival with helping O’Carroll and lending him cannon to defend Leap Castle against him. The fact was hardly disputed, but it had occurred as far back as 1516, and it was alleged in answer that the attack on O’Carroll was wanton and unprovoked. There were also accusations of intriguing with the O’Mores, of spoiling a village in Kildare and slaughtering the people even at the altar, of using the Castle of Arklow to rob the lieges by land and sea, of levying illegal taxes, and, in short, of behaving as Anglo-Irish noblemen generally did. A far graver charge against Sir Piers was the not having punished certain of his servants who were present at the barbarous murder of Maurice Doran, Bishop of Leighlin. The murderer was Maurice Kavanagh, his own Archdeacon, whom the Bishop had reproved for his crimes. It was said, moreover, that the churches in Tipperary and Kilkenny were ruinous, and that Sir Piers was in all things under the influence of his wife, the Lord Deputy’s sister. It is satisfactory to know that the Bishop’s tonsured assassin did not escape, for Kildare had him hanged and disembowelled at the scene of the murder: he was a near relation of Sir Piers Butler, which may account for the Lord Deputy’s anxiety to do justice in this particular case.[104]
Kildare again in Ulster, 1524.
Kildare never ceased to harass such Irish chiefs as he chose to consider his enemies. In the autumn of 1524 he led an army to help his kinsman O’Neill against O’Donnell, and encamped near Strabane. Manus O’Donnell, who had just returned from Scotland, wished to attack at once with his strong force of Macdonnells; but he was overruled by his father, who feared the Deputy’s artillery. Flights of arrows were directed against the intrenchments all night, and in the morning Kildare thought it prudent to make peace and to depart without fighting. His old enemy Hugh O’Neill attempted to intercept him, but was killed in the skirmish which ensued. After this Kildare seems to have kept quiet for some months, and to have endeavoured to make peace among the Ulster clans. O’Neill and O’Donnell, or O’Donnell’s son Manus, visited Dublin; but all efforts to reconcile them were ineffectual, ‘so that they returned to their homes in strife, and the war continued as before.’[105]
Butler goes to England, 1526. Kildare sent for the next year.
In September 1526 Sir Piers Butler went to England to press his various suits, and to complain of Kildare’s conduct. At Bristol he was in great danger of his life, the citizens having quarrelled with his retinue, who were probably for the most part Irish in speech and habits. According to Sir Piers the townsmen were the aggressors, and no provocation was given to the 600 men who surrounded his lodgings and threatened to set the house on fire. In spite of the interposition of the mayor and of some of the King’s officers, Sir Piers was obliged to surrender certain of his men and to find securities for the rest. A grant of considerable possessions in Ireland rewarded him for the troubles and dangers of the journey to Court. He accused Kildare of conspiring with Irish enemies to help Desmond in the foreign intrigues which he was undoubtedly carrying on, and of neglecting to arrest him when ordered to do so by special letters from the King. It was said that he entered Munster for the ostensible purpose of effecting this arrest, but sent private word to Desmond to avoid him, and to plead his privilege not to attend Parliament or enter walled towns. It was scarcely fair to expect that the head of one branch of the Geraldines should willingly imprison the head of the other; but Kildare was also accused of employing Irish enemies to oppress the Butlers, was summoned to London, and was at once committed to the Tower. He was soon brought before the Council, and Wolsey is said to have assailed him in a violent speech, calling him King of Ireland, a king who was able to bring back his own from the furthest edge of Ulster, but who would do nothing against a rebellious lord who had defied the Crown of England. After a time Kildare interrupted the Cardinal, saying that he was no orator, and that if he did not answer each charge in detail as it was uttered, his memory would fail him and his case would thus be prejudiced. This was considered reasonable, and the Earl hastened to ridicule the notion that Desmond’s liberty depended on him. ‘Cannot,’ he asked, ‘the Earl of Desmond shift, but I must be of counsel? Cannot he hide him except I wink?’ Then he turned round upon Wolsey, whom he averred to be quite as much king in England as he was in Ireland. Indeed, he would willingly change places for one month, and would engage to pick up more crumbs in that time than could be bought with all the revenues of his Irish earldom. ‘I slumber,’ he continued, ‘in a hard cabin, when you sleep in a soft bed of down; I serve under the King his cope of heaven, when you are served under a canopy; I drink water out of my skull, when you drink wine out of golden cups; my courser is trained to the field, when your genet is taught to amble; when you are begraced and belorded, and crouched and kneeled unto, then find I small grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.’ Wolsey broke up the Council in high dudgeon, and sent the Earl back to the Tower until further evidence should arrive from Ireland. Before leaving Dublin, Kildare had taken the precaution of seeing each Councillor separately and binding him by oath to write in his favour.[106]
Wolsey accused of plotting Kildare’s death.
Wolsey is said to have taken it upon himself to send a death-warrant to the Governor of the Tower, which arrived while that officer was playing shovel-board with his prisoner. On reading it the Lieutenant sighed, and Kildare remarked, ‘By St. Bride, there is some mad game in that scroll, but fall how it will this throw is for a huddle.’ On learning the contents of the paper he begged his gaoler to go straight to the King and ask his real pleasure. Unwilling to offend Wolsey, but still more unwilling to obey him, the Lieutenant repaired to Whitehall and was at once admitted, though it was ten o’clock at night. The King immediately respited the execution, and is said to have used strong language, calling Wolsey a saucy, over-officious priest, and threatening him with unpleasant consequences.[107]
But the Cardinal has perhaps been misrepresented.
Such is the received story. Yet Wolsey, who is represented as thirsting for Kildare’s blood, was not even disposed to remove him from the viceroyalty. This forbearance arose from no love for the troublesome Earl, but it was thought that if he were detained in England and treated with some show of favour, his Irish adherents would be afraid to move. In case the King should nevertheless resolve to remove Kildare, then Wolsey advised that Sir Piers should again be made Deputy, the real government being in the hands of his son. Henry, however, thought that James Butler was too young for so great a charge, and that the noblemen of Ireland would disdain to be led by one who was junior to them all.[108]